Speaker Mike Johnson may as well send the House home today. In fact, they probably should’ve taken the week off.
The House Rules Committee, the speaker-controlled panel charged with shaping legislation for the floor, is completely frozen after hardline Republicans refused to vote for any rules this week.
The crux of the issue is this: Democrats on the House Rules Committee keep putting up amendments to force the Trump administration to release whatever information it has on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, including his ties to President Donald Trump.
Trump and Epstein were close for years but had a falling out in 2004, four years before Epstein pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges, including soliciting minors. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Trump sent Epstein a “bawdy” birthday card in 2003. Trump denies that and is suing the WSJ for $10 billion over the report.
The House GOP leadership expects Rules Republicans to hold the line and vote against these amendments to prevent them from reaching the House floor. But Republicans on the panel — and the House at large — don’t want to vote no because they’re then accused of helping hide the truth about Epstein.
Last week, Johnson had the same problem. His solution was to push a non-binding resolution through the committee and then never put it for a vote on the House floor. We said this was a bit of a confounding move at the time because it actually gave an opening for the Epstein saga to continue, not shut it down or provide an off-ramp for nervous GOP lawmakers.
Johnson said Monday that he had no plans to put the resolution up for a vote before the August recess. This only made things worse.
Rules Republicans refused to pass a rule through the committee. And if they had advanced the rule, it would’ve failed on the House floor, according to multiple GOP lawmakers familiar with the conference dynamics.
“It’s just grandstanding with [Democrats],” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of Rules who voted for an Epstein amendment last week.
Norman added: “We voted down the amendments last week. … They’re going to try to demagogue this thing just because they hate Trump. … The time has passed for that. … We’re just not prepared to give [Democrats] an endless microphone when they know what they’re doing is just grandstanding.”
In many ways, this is a direct rebuke of Johnson’s handling of the Epstein situation. He’s caught between a House Republican Conference that wants to see the Epstein materials released and a vengeful president who seems to want nothing to do with revisiting the sordid episode after stoking related conspiracies for years.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has drafted a discharge petition with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.) calling on the Justice Department to release all its Epstein-related materials. Ten House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of the measure. While it hasn’t formally “ripened” as a discharge petition — meaning Massie and Khanna can’t force a floor vote yet on the issue — Massie guarantees that it will pass if and when it does get taken up.
Massie also had harsh words for Johnson’s handling of the Epstein scandal.
“I think this is the referendum on [Johnson’s] leadership,” said Massie, who has been a frequent critic of the speaker.
“Whose he gonna pick? Is he going to stand with the pedophiles and underage sex traffickers? Or is he gonna pick the American people and justice for the victims? This is the ultimate decision the speaker needs to make. And it’s irrespective of what the president wants.”
The GOP conference meeting should be interesting this morning.
