Congressional Democrats want to shine a spotlight on the Jeffrey Epstein controversy and drive a wedge into a Republican Party now tearing itself apart over the issue. But relegated to the minority in both chambers, they’re dealing with a limited toolbox to put GOP members on the spot.
Democrats’ attempts to weaponize the swirling questions over Epstein have been stymied by the House majority’s moves to hamstring the minority party. One option provided for under chamber rules — the privileged “resolution of inquiry” — was quashed by House GOP leaders in April amid the scandal over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of an unclassified Signal chat.
That means Speaker Mike Johnson can simply bottle up other attempts to exploit GOP divides over the convicted sex offender whose 2019 death by suicide in prison has fueled scads of conspiracy theories.
Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), for instance, introduced a nonbinding resolution Monday to demand the Trump administration release all its files related to Epstein, but that legislation is unlikely to ever get a vote on the House floor.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) had slightly more success mounting an effort to amend cryptocurrency-related legislation scheduled to hit the House floor later this week to compel the release of Epstein-related files. Democrats forced a Rules Committee vote on whether to allow a floor vote on Khanna’s amendment; Republicans voted it down, though one Rules member in their ranks, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, crossed party lines.
On the floor Tuesday afternoon, House Democrats attempted to cast a procedural vote as a referendum on releasing the so-called Epstein files. Had their effort to vote down the motion succeeded, they said, they would have moved forward with Khanna’s amendment. But the “previous question” vote, which hasn’t been won by the House minority since 1988, prevailed 211-210 on party lines.
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