Didn't they disclose binders of documents???

Massie vows to press forward with Epstein discharge petition

The Kentucky Republican said he was not dissuaded by GOP leaders’ moves to undermine his bipartisan effort.

By Mia McCarthy, Meredith Lee Hill and Hailey Fuchs

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie said he would forge ahead with a discharge petition to force the disclosure of investigative files related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein — even after the Oversight Committee publicly released related documents from the Justice Department Tuesday night.

Republican leaders are hoping that document release and a vote on an alternative symbolic measure will head off Massie’s efforts to get his bill to the House floor.

“It doesn’t change a thing,” Massie told reporters. “It’s giving political cover for some people, but that’s fleeting, because eventually people are going to pore through those documents and find out there’s nothing new in there.”

Massie filed the petition, which could sidestep GOP leaders and force a floor vote on disclosing the DOJ trove, shortly after Speaker Mike Johnson gaveled the chamber into session Tuesday.

Three more House Republicans — Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — signed on by Tuesday night. Working with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the Kentucky Republican now needs to persuade two additional GOP lawmakers to sign it.

But several previous Republican co-sponsors indicated they were unlikely to sign onto Massie’s effort following the document disclosure. Massie earlier in the day accused the White House of orchestrating a pressure campaign, and later he fingered Johnson for seeking to obstruct his effort.

“The question is, why is the speaker of the House engaged in that?” Massie said. “It seems to be very out of character for him to cover up for sex trafficking ring. But that’s, that is what’s happening right now.”

Johnson said earlier Tuesday that he “would not put much stock into what Thomas Massie says.”

Democrats are expected to support the measure en masse. Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat, said he signed the petition almost immediately after it was filed.

Rules Committee Democrats, McGovern said, will propose during a Tuesday afternoon panel meeting bringing up legislation that mirrors the Massie-Khanna measure.

Johnson and other lawmakers spoke Tuesday afternoon with some of Epstein’s victims in a meeting arranged by the House Oversight Committee. It is the first of several events scheduled on Capitol Hill this week where victims will testify.

One of the Republican cosponsors of the Massie-Khanna measure, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, attended and said as he left that he needed to clarify whether the legislation would fully protect victims’ privacy. The victims in the meeting, Burchett said, wanted the government to withhold some information as it reveals further documents in the case.

“We gotta rethink the whole files thing,” he told reporters. “In our rush to do this we have to protect these ladies and these others that were involved.”

Johnson told reporters that he believed the legislation was “inartfully drafted” and doesn’t adequately protect victims. One part, he said, cites the wrong provision in federal statutes.

But Greene said she thought it was important to move forward with both the Oversight probe and the discharge effort. “These are some of the most courageous women I’ve ever met,” she said leaving the victims meeting.

“This shouldn’t have been a battle, and unfortunately, it has been one,” she added.

The Massie-Khanna measure allows the Justice Department to withhold or redact files that “contain personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

Separately, a GOP member of the Rules Committee, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, said he hadn’t read the discharge petition yet and said he would first review the alternative measure put forward by House leaders that would offer symbolic support for the Epstein probe already launched by the Oversight Committee

“We’re all for releasing the information and getting this moving forward,” he said. Asked if he had a view on the Massie-Khanna effort, he added, “Not yet.”