More and more Republican lawmakers are defecting to throw their weight behind the release of the Epstein files.
Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Eli Crane of Arizona, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania have all signaled an intent to vote in favor of a measure to release federal investigation documents related to the notorious sex offender, according to CNN and Politico.
That vote will come as soon as next week, according to Speaker Mike Johnson, after 218 lawmakers signed on to a discharge petition forcing the House to confront the Epstein files. The final signature came on Wednesday after Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn in.
The fresh wave of Republican support for the release of the Epstein files came the same day that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee unloaded another tranche of documents related to the late pedophile.
The latest release centered around a massive trove of emails written for and by Epstein—including one where he tells his former girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell that Donald Trump “knew about the girls.”
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” Epstein wrote in 2011. “[Redacted victim name] spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that,” Maxwell responded.
The newly uncovered emails sent President Trump into a Truth Social meltdown.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” he wrote. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.”
All 214 Democrats in the House backed the discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein files. They were joined by only four GOP lawmakers: Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the effort along with Democrat Ro Khanna, as well as Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
The petition succeeded even after Trump, once a close Epstein pal, called up the MAGA renegades in a last-ditch attempt to get them to pull their signatures.
The president called up Boebert on Tuesday and met with her at the White House on Wednesday, The New York Times reported. He also reportedly played phone tag with Mace, but both lawmakers ultimately kept their signatures on the discharge petition.
“The deal for Republicans on this vote is that Trump will protect you if you vote the wrong way,” Massie told CNN on Wednesday. “In other words, if you vote to cover up for pedophiles, you’ve got cover in a Republican primary. But I would remind my colleagues that this vote is going to be on your record for longer than Trump is going to be president.”
Bacon cautioned, however, that the Epstein files crusade will still have to overcome the Senate and ultimately land on Trump’s desk.
“I get it, people want to see this discharge petition,” he told MSNBC. “I think it’s a little bit of a false hope that it’s going to provide these great results. It’s still got to work its way through the Senate and the president, but we’re already getting a lot of results.”
The Nebraska representative also described the Epstein debacle as “a self-inflicted wound by the White House.”
“I think they’ve dug themselves a hole,” he said. “But in the end, I’m for transparency.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
