Newly sworn-in Rep. Adelita Grijalva on Wednesday added her name to a discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein case files, becoming the final signature needed to ensure House action.
The long-awaited 218th signature shows a majority of the House is in favor of releasing the Epstein files. All but four signers are Democrats.
The discharge petition rules do not allow for one of the signers to call an immediate vote. They would have had to wait until early December, but House Speaker Mike Johnson said he will schedule the vote for next week.
Epstein was a wealthy financier. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked minors for sex with Epstein and potentially some of his wealthy and politically powerful friends. Lawmakers want to dig up information on who may have been involved.
The Justice Department has said there is no Epstein client list in its investigatory files.
Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial. His death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
SEE ALSO: GOP releases new batch of Epstein files after Democrats say three emails incriminate Trump
The discharge petition will force a vote on a bill from Reps. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, California Democrat, to require the Justice Department to release all “unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to the Epstein and Maxwell cases.
The Massie bill specifically asks for all of Epstein’s flight logs and travel records; names of entities and individuals with known or alleged ties to Epstein’s trafficking or financial networks; information on immunity deals or other legal settlements involving Epstein or his associates; any communications on DOJ decisions not to bring charges; and any notes or metadata concerning the destruction or concealment of documents or other evidence.
It includes exemptions allowing child sexual abuse materials and personally identifiable information of the victims to be withheld. A group of Epstein victims visited Capitol Hill in September to urge lawmakers to support the discharge petition.
Mr. Massie led the discharge petition. Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia were the only other Republicans to sign it.
The White House summoned Ms. Boebert for a meeting Wednesday with top Justice Department and FBI officials. She did not remove her name from the petition but thanked the White House officials for the meeting, saying, “Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.”
Other Republicans who did not sign the petition said they will vote for the bill.
Ms. Grijalva, the final signatory, was elected Sept. 23 to replace her late father, Raúl Grijalva, representing Arizona’s 7th District.
She was not sworn in until Wednesday because Republican leaders declined to give her the oath of office until the House returned to regular session.
The House had been in recess since Sept. 19 after passing a stopgap bill to fund the government. It returned Wednesday to pass a Senate-amended version of the bill and reopen the government that has been shut down for 43 days.
Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has denied that his decision to delay swearing in Ms. Grijalva was related to her plan to sign the discharge petition. He called the measure “totally superfluous,” given the investigation into the issue by the House Oversight Committee and Government Reform Committee.
Some House Republicans who had considered signing the discharge petition earlier this year held off after the Oversight Committee began releasing documents.
The committee has obtained and released thousands of pages of the Justice Department files, as well as additional documents from Epstein’s estate, including 20,000 pages released Wednesday.
Oversight Democrats released emails from the estate in which Epstein referenced President Trump. One said Mr. Trump spent hours at his house with one of the sex trafficking victims, whose name was redacted, and another said Mr. Trump “knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Oversight Republicans said the Epstein estate did not redact the name of the victim, the late Virginia Giuffre, but Democrats redacted it because she “publicly said that she never witnessed wrongdoing by President Trump.”
“Democrats are trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump,” they said.
If the Massie-Khanna bill passes the House as expected, Senate Republicans probably won’t take it up.
The Senate in September rejected an amendment Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, filed to the annual defense authorization bill to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files in a 51-49 vote.
The vote fell mostly along party lines, but two Republicans, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted with all Democrats in opposition to killing the amendment.
Mr. Thune declined to comment at the time on whether he would bring the Massie-Khanna bill up for a vote if it passed the House, saying he would defer to Senate committees of jurisdiction “to deal with that in an appropriate way.”
He also said he trusted the Justice Department and House Oversight Committee to “get as much information out there as possible,” but did not explicitly close the door on a potential vote.
“I believe that transparency is always best, and you should get as much information out there as you possibly can, in a way that obviously protects the rights of the victims,” Mr. Thune said.
