President Donald Trump is facing a situation he dislikes almost as much as a subpoena, with Republicans breaking ranks on live television.
According to CNN, the House plans to vote next week on a bill that would require the Justice Department to release all its Jeffrey Epstein case files. This unprecedented release could reveal years of sealed interviews, internal memos, and emails involving some of the most powerful people in the world, Trump included.
What has the White House anxious is not just the bill itself, but also who is helping Democrats bring it to the floor. A bipartisan discharge petition, led by Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Ro Khanna of California, quietly gathered the 218 signatures needed to bypass GOP leadership and force the vote. The final decisive signature came from newly sworn-in Representative Adelita Grijalva, who signed immediately upon taking office.
All 214 House Democrats signed the petition, and four Republicans also crossed over: Massie, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Their decision has infuriated Trump allies and prompted a full-scale effort from the Trump administration to win them back.
Trump is personally engaging in the fight; on Wednesday, he issued a warning, accusing Democrats of “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax,” and urged Republicans to unite, stating, “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.” Behind the scenes, senior administration officials have contacted Boebert and Mace, trying to persuade them to withdraw their signatures.
Massie says that plan won’t succeed, he informed reporters that the House parliamentarian told him signatures on a discharge petition cannot be removed once submitted, meaning the White House has to watch the process unfold.
The timing is harsh for Trump, Democrat House investigators released more Epstein emails this week, including a 2011 message where Epstein stated a trafficking victim “spent hours” at his house with Trump, and another message claiming Trump “knew about the girls.” There is no proof of criminal wrongdoing by Trump in the emails, but the political repercussions have been swift.
The White House claims Democrats are misrepresenting the documents to damage the president. Aides argue that the emails are being “selectively framed” and that Trump’s critics are taking lines out of context. Trump has embraced this view, insisting the entire controversy is a setup to harm him.
His Republican opponents remain firm; Boebert and Greene say they signed the petition because survivors deserve transparency. Mace, who has publicly discussed being a survivor of sexual assault, said she cannot, in good conscience, oppose releasing the files. Massie insists it’s a constitutional oversight issue, not a political one.
Speaker Mike Johnson, caught between the president and four members of his own party, has reluctantly accepted reality. After Grijalva’s signature put the petition over the threshold, Johnson announced the House will hold the vote next week. He warned that any document release must protect victims’ identities, but he recognized that the matter can no longer be delayed.
Adding to the turmoil, Representative Mikie Sherrill is expected to resign next week to become the governor of New Jersey, altering the House numbers again. But for now, the arithmetic doesn’t matter. The momentum does.
If the Epstein Files Transparency Act passes, the Senate will be the next battleground. Even if the bill fails there, the damage is done. Trump will have to observe as Republicans publicly decide whether to support him or to push for transparency, something he has tried to avoid at all costs.
