Bipartisan effort to force Epstein vote throttles House again, members set to leave Wednesday

The leaders of the GOP-controlled House Rules Committee shut down the panel Monday over a bipartisan effort to get the chamber to force the release of files on the deceased financier, convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

Legislation must pass through the committee as a final step to get a final floor vote, which those pushing for the Epstein measure are seeking.  

House Speaker Mike Johnson now has several options with the House members set to leave on Wednesday, for August recess including holding final votes under the suspension of the rules or not holding any votes, according to the news outlet Politico.

As many as 11 House Republicans reportedly support a floor vote on the Epstein files. 

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the committee, said the panel would not reconvene for the rest of the week.

“We’re done,” McGovern told The Hill news outlet on Monday. “Not reporting out a rule, we’re done for the night, we’re done for the week. … There’s some issues going on within the Republican conference, I think around the Epstein stuff, that they can’t seem to get under control. So we’ll do probably suspensions for the remainder of the week.”

Johnson said earlier Monday that the House wouldn't vote on the Epstein legislation before August recess, which is set to begin after Thursday's votes.

“There was nothing else that was time-sensitive this week that we needed to handle by way of a rule so the work of the House will continue all week. "We’ll be here doing our work, and we won’t have the Democrats. We won’t allow them a platform to try and engage in political games,” Johnson said. “So that’s all it was.”

The only floor business this week will be non-controversial suspension bills, which need two-thirds support of the House to pass.

“We already had suspension votes scheduled every day this week, we have lots of work with appropriations, and a lot of committees doing very important stuff,” Johnson told The Hill.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said that the House can still vote on suspensions and conduct committee meetings and hearings.