September 2, 2025
We are already seeing the beginnings of a bitter fight on the floor of the House of representatives. And the stake are high – because whoever wins this battle – will determine how much of the Epstein files you get to see.
And like everything in congress – the waters are muddy and it’s getting confusing. Maybe that’s by design. But let me explain what’s going on.
On one side you have Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ro Khanna from California and their discharge petition and on the other side you have House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team and his new Epstein resolution.
Both of those things have to do with the Epstein files – but they each would have very different outcomes. First – there is what’s called a discharge petition. I told you about it right before congress went on recess. Besides Massie and Khanna there are several Republican and Democratic cosponsors of that bill. This discharge petition would require the attorney general to make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the department of justice, including the federal bureau of investigation and united states attorneys’ offices that related to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and literally everything involved in the Epstein and Maxwell cases. Here’s the interesting part – the discharge petition specifically says the attorney general may not withhold or redact any information included in any of those files that would cause embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitively for any government official, public figure or foreign dignitary that’s included in the files. The discharge petition also says the attorney general may withhold anything that includes personal identifiable information of victims. So this would require – all the documents to get out there including the redactions of the victims. Which means these documents would then be out of the control of the department of justice and the trump administration and in theory in your hands.
In order to get to that point — 218 House members must sign on to this discharge petition. And if it reaches 218 signatures the House Speaker must put it on the floor for a vote within seven legislative days. The House Speaker has no control over that — which is very different than the iron grip that every house speaker has over what legislation comes to the floor. And then of course – it would need a majority vote to pass. That signature collection is happening right now – all of the Democrats have said they will sign it so that means Massie and Khanna only need six Republicans to make 218. As of tonight, four republicans have already signed the discharge petition including Representative Massie and Representatives Mace of South Carolina, Boebert of Colorado and Greene of Georgia. So they just need two more.
On the other side of this is House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Trump administration. They do not want this discharge petition to move forward. They do not want these documents just out there without a filter from the DOJ or the House oversight committee which is currently going through a review of the entire case. The Speaker says the discharge petition is a problem because he says it has vague language about protecting the victims. So instead the Speaker and House leadership announced today that they are going to present their own Epstein resolution this week that will get a vote. That resolution would formally endorse the Epstein investigation that is already underway by the House oversight committee. That resolution will be mostly symbolic because the house committee is already doing the work. It’s just basically going to say – yay…keep up the good work. You may remember a few weeks ago it was the oversight committee that released all the audio recordings of the DOJ’s interview of Ghislaine Maxwell and tonight – the committee released the first 33,000+ pages of the Epstein files that they subpoenaed from the Department of Justice. Most lawmakers who have already been through the documents that were released tonight say most of the information is already publicly available.
List of signatures on the discharge petition here.
Link of newly released 33,000+ Epstein documents here.
