The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, on Tuesday said he would not prevent a vote on legislation to make the Jeffrey Epstein files public, even as the chamber remained out of session for a fourth straight week.
Johnson has kept the House of Representatives in recess ever since the shutdown began at the start of the month, after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on extending government funding beyond the end of September.
That has had the knock-on effect of delaying the success of a legislative maneuver known as a discharge petition to force a vote on a bill that would make public documents from the federal investigation into Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking and died while awaiting trial in 2019. The justice department this year said he died by suicide, but Donald Trump and his officials have previously restated conspiracy theories that Epstein was at the center of a larger plot.
The president opposes the release of the documents and called the controversy over them a “Democrat hoax”, but all House Democrats along with three Republicans have signed the petition, bringing it one signature away from reaching the 218-member threshold to trigger a vote.
“If it hits 218, it comes to the floor,” Johnson told Politico in an interview. “That’s how it works: If you get the signatures, it goes to a vote.”
It was speculated that the speaker could look for ways to undermine the petition. Earlier this year, Johnson backed efforts to block a discharge petition on legislation allowing proxy voting for new parents in the House.
The final signature on the petition is expected to be Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat elected last month to fill her late father’s seat representing a district along the state’s border with Mexico. However, Johnson has refused to swear her in until the House reconvenes, which he says he will not allow until the government reopens.
Grijalva has told the Guardian she believes that Johnson, a close ally of Trump, is attempting to delay the vote on the legislation concerning the Epstein files. But even if the bill is approved by the House, it will have to clear the Republican-controlled Senate and be signed by Trump to take effect.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Johnson argued that the discharge petition was unnecessary because a House committee is conducting its own investigation into Epstein.
“The bipartisan House oversight committee is already accomplishing what the discharge petition, that gambit, sought, and much more,” he said. That investigation has resulted in the release of tens of thousands of pages related to the government’s handling of the case, including a salacious drawing Trump apparently sent Epstein for his birthday.
In a statement, Democrat Ro Khanna, a co-sponsor of the discharge petition, called Johnson’s comments “a big deal”.
“I appreciate Speaker Johnson making it clear we will get a vote on Rep. Thomas Massie and my bill to release the Epstein files. The advocacy of the survivors is working. Now let’s get Adelita Grijalva sworn in and Congress back to work,” Khanna said.
The government shutdown entered its 21st day on Tuesday with no signs of ending. The Senate’s Republican leaders have held 11 votes on a continuing resolution (CR) that would approve federal funding through 21 November, but Democrats have refused to provide the support necessary for it to clear the 60-vote threshold to advance.
The minority party has countered by demanding an extension of subsidies for Affordable Care Act healthcare plans, which will otherwise expire at the end of the year. They also want curbs on Trump’s ability to slash congressionally approved funding through rescissions, and the undoing of cuts to Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, that Republicans approved unilaterally early this year.
The Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune, said he is willing to negotiate over the Affordable Care Act subsidies, but only once the government reopens.
Trump held a lunch at the White House with Republican senators in the afternoon, during which he delivered a rambling speech thanking them for their cooperation in which the shutdown was mentioned only occasionally.
“From the beginning, our message has been very simple: we will not be extorted on this crazy plot of theirs,” Trump said. “Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats need to vote for the clean, bipartisan CR and reopen our government. It’s got to be reopened right now.”
In a speech on the Senate floor, Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, dismissed the White House event as a “a mini pep rally” and pressed Republicans to negotiate.
“Democrats were ready to work with the other side to get it done. But Republicans continue to act like these ACA premiums are not their problem,” he said.
