Speaker Mike Johnson said he would send lawmakers home early for their summer recess in order to head off Democratic demands for votes on calling for the release of files from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr. Johnson implied that his concerns about transparency had been alleviated, for now, by Mr. Trump’s move to authorize Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Mr. Epstein. That is a far cry from the breadth of information the president’s supporters have demanded, yet it appeared to be enough to persuade the speaker.
Edit
This thread used to link to https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/22/us/trump-news/0d8c9050-dee0-5253-89b2-30e4737090c1, a live thread linked from NYT’s “Breaking news” newsletter, which headlined it “Johnson Shutting Down House Early to Block Epstein Vote”. Now that the NYT has made a standalone article, I’ve replaced this post’s link with that article’s gift link, courtesy of the relevant subcommag.
I guess he figures that when they return, everybody will have forgotten about Epstein.
He’s probably right.
First thing Democrats should do when they get back is demand the files be released again. Not like Republicans will allow anything that actually benefits the public to be done, might as well just troll them.
And they should absolutely run on that - “I will release (or support the release of) the Epstein Files on Day One.”
Every Democratic candidate should say that over and over. Don’t dwell on it, don’t expand on it, just make that statement. Make the MAGAs blather about why it’s good to support child molesters.
They should have run on that in 2024. Made a big huge issue of it during the campaign.
Instead we got “Look! dick cheney likes me!”
It wouldn’t have been as effective back then. Now that they’ve finally come to the moment of release, they refused to do it, after making it one of the center points of the campaign. For many, it WAS the campaign. Now that they’ve finally balked at the finish line, there is no speculation about their position.
NOW, is when the Dems can finally take real advantage of this situation of the MAGAs making, and they should seize this opportunity and explore it mercilessly. The MAGAs certainly would.
unfortunately the BBB tax/medicaid cut time bombs will be in effect when that happens making the dumb magats suddenly forget about the epstein files.