Discharge petition to force House vote on Epstein files succeeds with Grijalva’s signature
Emily Brooks | 11/12/25 4:22 PM ET | The Hill
A discharge petition for a bill to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein got enough signatures Wednesday to force action on the matter, teeing up a long-sought vote on the House floor relating to the convicted sex offender.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) became the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition shortly after she was sworn in Wednesday. She joined all other Democrats and four Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.).
Grijalva signed the petition on the House floor immediately after being sworn in as Democrats in the chamber cheered and two Epstein survivors looked on from the gallery.
“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that [President] Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged. It’s about time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people,” she said in her first speech.
She added, “Justice cannot wait another day.”
Later on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that he would bring the Epstein bill for a vote in the House next week — a move that amounts to ripping the band-aid off a vote that neither Johnson nor President Trump wanted.
Without cooperation from GOP leadership, the earliest a vote would have happened under the discharge petition process was early December, due to waiting periods under the process.
The Epstein petition, led by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), aims to call up a bill directing the attorney general to release unclassified records and documents in the possession of the Department of Justice related to Epstein, his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of trafficking young girls to him, and other individuals named or referenced in connection to Epstein’s criminal activities, among other provisions. It permits records to be withheld that contain personally identifiable information about victims or depicts or contain child sexual abuse materials, among other permitted redactions.
The bill is poised to easily pass. Multiple more Republicans said after the vote that they plan to support the bill when it hits the floor, and Republicans and Democrats alike are predicting mass GOP votes in support of the measure.
But it still faces an uphill climb to become law, as it would have to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate before making it to the desk of the president, who took to Truth Social saying that only “very bad, or stupid” Republicans would fall into an Epstein “trap.”
“There should be no deflections [sic] to Epstein or anything else,” Trump said.
Trump and administration officials reached out to Boebert and Mace in the hours ahead of Grijalva signing the petition Wednesday, as either one of them removing their names would have prevented the effort from succeeding. CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel planned to meet with Boebert on Wednesday. Trump called Mace early Wednesday, but the two had not connected as of early afternoon, a source told The Hill.
Both representatives kept their names on the petition.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) took to the House floor to request unanimous consent to immediately consider the Epstein Files Transparency Act soon after it reached 218 signatures.
The chair, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Calif.), ruled his request out of order, saying that “the chair is constrained not to entertain the request unless it is cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.”
Burchett followed up by saying that Republicans were requesting unanimous consent and Democrats were objecting, and the chair responded that it was not a proper parliamentary inquiry to ask which side of the aisle had failed to clear a unanimous consent request.
Johnson pointed to that shot-down request later on Wednesday, arguing that Democrats opposed the unanimous consent request.
“It was a staggering level of hypocrisy. I think some of them regretted it, because within about a half hour of that, there was a lot of confusion, and some of them claim that they did not object, but they did, and that’s what happened on the floor,” Johnson said.
“So we’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, soon as we get back,” Johnson said.
Johnson is declining to use other procedural gambits to try to “turn off” the discharge petition mechanism, as he did earlier this year on a measure that would have allowed new parents to vote by proxy for a period after their child’s birth.
Khanna predicted Wednesday that if the underlying bill comes to a vote, dozens more Republicans would vote for it.
“I believe we’re going to get 40, 50 Republicans voting with us on the release. And if we get that kind of overwhelming vote, that’s going to push the Senate, and that’s going to push the release of the files from the Justice Department,” Khanna said.
Republican leaders have long opposed the bill led by Massie and Khanna, despite the duo hosting a stunning press conference with multiple Epstein accusers in September who urged Congress to pass the bill.
Johnson said that the bill is “moot,” since the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is already separately investigating the Epstein matter.
The committee has received and released materials from the Department of Justice and the Epstein estate, and interviewed key figures in the Epstein case — including former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who oversaw Epstein’s much-criticized 2008 plea deal for two prostitution-related offenses and had work-release privileges while serving 13 months in jail.
More Epstein disclosures from the committee inflamed the debate Wednesday.
Democrats on the panel released emails with Epstein alleging that Trump “knew about the girls,” which Republicans accused Democrats of cherry-picking.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing. “Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out, because he was a pedophile and he was a creep.”
The committee later on Wednesday released a tranche of 20,000 pages of documents received from the Epstein estate.
Awesome.
Discharge petition to force House vote on Epstein files succeeds with Grijalva’s signature
Emily Brooks | 11/12/25 4:22 PM ET | The Hill
A discharge petition for a bill to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein got enough signatures Wednesday to force action on the matter, teeing up a long-sought vote on the House floor relating to the convicted sex offender.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) became the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition shortly after she was sworn in Wednesday. She joined all other Democrats and four Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.).
Grijalva signed the petition on the House floor immediately after being sworn in as Democrats in the chamber cheered and two Epstein survivors looked on from the gallery.
“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that [President] Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged. It’s about time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people,” she said in her first speech.
She added, “Justice cannot wait another day.”
Later on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that he would bring the Epstein bill for a vote in the House next week — a move that amounts to ripping the band-aid off a vote that neither Johnson nor President Trump wanted.
Without cooperation from GOP leadership, the earliest a vote would have happened under the discharge petition process was early December, due to waiting periods under the process.
The Epstein petition, led by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), aims to call up a bill directing the attorney general to release unclassified records and documents in the possession of the Department of Justice related to Epstein, his former associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of trafficking young girls to him, and other individuals named or referenced in connection to Epstein’s criminal activities, among other provisions. It permits records to be withheld that contain personally identifiable information about victims or depicts or contain child sexual abuse materials, among other permitted redactions.
The bill is poised to easily pass. Multiple more Republicans said after the vote that they plan to support the bill when it hits the floor, and Republicans and Democrats alike are predicting mass GOP votes in support of the measure.
But it still faces an uphill climb to become law, as it would have to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate before making it to the desk of the president, who took to Truth Social saying that only “very bad, or stupid” Republicans would fall into an Epstein “trap.”
“There should be no deflections [sic] to Epstein or anything else,” Trump said.
Trump and administration officials reached out to Boebert and Mace in the hours ahead of Grijalva signing the petition Wednesday, as either one of them removing their names would have prevented the effort from succeeding. CNN reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel planned to meet with Boebert on Wednesday. Trump called Mace early Wednesday, but the two had not connected as of early afternoon, a source told The Hill.
Both representatives kept their names on the petition.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) took to the House floor to request unanimous consent to immediately consider the Epstein Files Transparency Act soon after it reached 218 signatures.
The chair, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Calif.), ruled his request out of order, saying that “the chair is constrained not to entertain the request unless it is cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.”
Burchett followed up by saying that Republicans were requesting unanimous consent and Democrats were objecting, and the chair responded that it was not a proper parliamentary inquiry to ask which side of the aisle had failed to clear a unanimous consent request.
Johnson pointed to that shot-down request later on Wednesday, arguing that Democrats opposed the unanimous consent request.
“It was a staggering level of hypocrisy. I think some of them regretted it, because within about a half hour of that, there was a lot of confusion, and some of them claim that they did not object, but they did, and that’s what happened on the floor,” Johnson said.
“So we’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote next week, soon as we get back,” Johnson said.
Johnson is declining to use other procedural gambits to try to “turn off” the discharge petition mechanism, as he did earlier this year on a measure that would have allowed new parents to vote by proxy for a period after their child’s birth.
Khanna predicted Wednesday that if the underlying bill comes to a vote, dozens more Republicans would vote for it.
“I believe we’re going to get 40, 50 Republicans voting with us on the release. And if we get that kind of overwhelming vote, that’s going to push the Senate, and that’s going to push the release of the files from the Justice Department,” Khanna said.
Republican leaders have long opposed the bill led by Massie and Khanna, despite the duo hosting a stunning press conference with multiple Epstein accusers in September who urged Congress to pass the bill.
Johnson said that the bill is “moot,” since the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is already separately investigating the Epstein matter.
The committee has received and released materials from the Department of Justice and the Epstein estate, and interviewed key figures in the Epstein case — including former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, who oversaw Epstein’s much-criticized 2008 plea deal for two prostitution-related offenses and had work-release privileges while serving 13 months in jail.
More Epstein disclosures from the committee inflamed the debate Wednesday.
Democrats on the panel released emails with Epstein alleging that Trump “knew about the girls,” which Republicans accused Democrats of cherry-picking.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing. “Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out, because he was a pedophile and he was a creep.”
The committee later on Wednesday released a tranche of 20,000 pages of documents received from the Epstein estate.
Updated at 8:04 p.m.