Republicans in the House of Representatives blocked an attempt by Democrats to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein Tuesday afternoon in a chaotic vote.
On Tuesday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) tried to get a vote on the House floor for his legislation that would have released files about the late disgraced financier who died by suicide in prison after being arrested on charges of sex trafficking underage girls. That came after Khanna’s amendment failed in the House Rules Committee on Monday.
Through some House rules maneuvers, Khanna was able to get a vote on including his proposal as an amendment to other non-related bills. The House floor soon ground to a halt. The vote remained open for more than half an hour, a handful of Republicans abstaining. In the end, he lost the chance to add his proposal as an amendment by a single vote, 211-210.
“We will keep fighting to get this thing released,” Khanna told The Independent.
Nine Republicans abstained from voting while two Democrats did not vote on the legislation.
The chaos and confusion on the floor reflected the larger conundrum Republicans face on Epstein. For the past few years, Republicans in Congress have frequently called for the release of the files related to his charges and his trafficking of young women.
That fell apart last week when the Department of Justice and the FBI determined that no proof existed that Epstein engaged in a vast blackmail conspiracy, and no “client list” existed and that Epstein likely killed himself when he was in prison.
That caused many in the larger MAGA-sphere to accuse Attorney General Pam Bondi of engaging in a cover-up. But Trump defended Bondi on Truth Social, saying to “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT.”
Trump and Epstein also enjoyed a friendship for many years, though no evidence has come to light that Trump engaged in sexual misconduct with the young women and girls that Epstein trafficked.
“It’s noteworthy that everybody, including the president on the Republican side, was so determined and adamant about releasing the Epstein files, and then somehow, all of a sudden, they decide that they don’t want transparency,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) told The Independent. “And with all of the various connections between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, and the fact that Pam Bondi has demonstrated herself to be essentially an arm of Donald Trump’s personal interests, it is quite clear that Donald Trump intervened to conceal and hide the Epstein files.”
Democrats for their part seemed to take pleasure in the chaos. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who recently became the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said that Republicans were being hypocrites.
“Clearly, they’re hiding something, clearly Donald Trump is hiding something,” he told The Independent. “This was never our issue. We’ve been focused on other things, but they’ve been obsessed about it and now that they’re clearly hiding something, I think it’s in the public interest we should release them.”
Garcia took over the Oversight Committee last month after the death of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA).
He recently defeated Jasmine Crockett of Texas for the spot. Both Crockett and Garcia are more combative than their older Democratic predecessors and see it as their job to take the fight to Republicans after Trump’s victory.
Garcia said that if Democrats retake the majority, they would “ask the right questions” and issue subpoenas to properly declassify information from the Epstein case.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) put it bluntly: “They’re complicit.”
