Washington — An effort to force a House vote on compelling the Justice Department to release materials related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein secured the final signature it needed Wednesday after House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed the swearing-in of a newly elected Democrat for seven weeks.
The effort, known as a discharge petition, defies House GOP leaders, who have opposed putting legislation backed by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky on the floor. Khanna and Massie introduced the measure, titled the Epstein Files Transparency Act, in July as pressure intensified on the Trump administration to release more Epstein-related files.
Their bill, as well as several other endeavors to release the materials, led to the disruption of several committee meetings and stalled floor action on other legislation before the House began its August recess days early.
Massie vowed to keep the Epstein issue a priority and filed a discharge petition upon their return in early September. A discharge petition enables members of the lower chamber to bypass House leadership if they can get a majority of members — 218 — to sign on.
All House Democrats and four Republicans have added their names. Besides Massie, GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have signed on. Two special elections in Virginia and Arizona in September provided the final two signatures from Democrats to reach the 218 threshold.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who was elected on Sept. 23 to fill the seat of her late father Raul, added her name to the petition on Wednesday, shortly after she was sworn in. She pointed to Epstein survivors in the House gallery who she said were present for her swearing-in.
“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged,” Grijalva said. “It’s past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people.”
House TV 
The House has been on break since Sept. 19, when it voted to pass a Republican bill to avert the government shutdown. The House was scheduled to be back in late September, but GOP leaders had extended the break until this week to increase pressure on the Senate to pass a short-term funding measure.
Supporters of the discharge petition interpreted the break as a move to avoid swearing in Grijalva, who had said she would add her name to the petition. Her signature on Wednesday starts the clock on a waiting period of seven legislative days before a member can motion to bring it to the floor. After that, leadership has two legislative days to schedule a vote, which could happen as soon as early December.
It’s unclear if the Senate would take it up if it clears the House.
“I believe we’re going to get 40, 50 Republicans voting with us on the release,” Khanna told reporters Wednesday. “And if we get that kind of overwhelming vote, that’s going to push the Senate and it’s going to push for a release of the files from the Justice Department.”
In September, Massie said GOP leaders were in “full panic” over the discharge petition and had “actually threatened” some of the cosigners — “politically, not physically.”
The bipartisan legislation calls for the release of documents relating to all investigations into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who has been convicted of sex trafficking. The bill would compel the release of flight logs, travel records, names of individuals and entities referenced in any Epstein case and internal Justice Department communications within 30 days. It would also make public any records “concerning the destruction, deletion, alteration, misplacement, or concealment of documents, recordings, or electronic data” related to Epstein and his associates, as well as documentation about his death.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has opposed the legislation, arguing that it does not go far enough to protect victims. He has criticized the discharge petition as “unnecessary,” citing the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Epstein case.
During its investigation, the Oversight Committee has released tens of thousands of Epstein-related records, including a new trove of documents unveiled on Wednesday.
Hours before Grijalva added her signature to the petition, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails exchanged between Epstein and others about President Trump.
The emails include a 2011 message from Epstein to Maxwell, his longtime associate, that said Mr. Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims, whose name is redacted. In another email in 2019 to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Mr. Trump has previously said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing. The White House said Wednesday that the unnamed victim in the emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who met Epstein in the summer of 2000, just before she turned 17, while working at the spa at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s South Florida club. Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, had not accused the president of any wrongdoing. She said in her memoir that Mr. Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier,” when she met him in his office in 2000.
Republicans on the committee claimed Democrats “cherry-pick” from the Epstein-related materials “to generate clickbait.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of selectively leaking emails to “create a fake narrative” to harm Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of using the emails to distract from the government shutdown.
Among the other items previously released was a book Maxwell compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, which included a letter allegedly signed by Mr. Trump. The president has denied penning the message, which is typed within what appears to be the outline of a woman’s body.
