The White House has warned Republican rebels in Congress that pushing for the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile abuse files would be seen as “a very hostile act” by President Donald Trump.
The GOP-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released more than 33,000 Epstein documents on Tuesday evening, after a closed-door meeting with multiple victims of Epstein and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Democrats complained, however, 97 percent of the documents were already in the public record, and Republican Thomas Massie, who has clashed regularly with Trump this year, stepped up his push for a House vote on the release of the documents in full.
Kentucky Rep. Massie, and Californian Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna have led a bipartisan push in the House for the GOP to be transparent about Epstein.
“People want these files released,” Massie said. “I mean, look, it’s not the biggest issue in the country. It’s taxes, jobs, the economy; those are always the big issues. But you really can’t solve any of that if this place is corrupt.”
Massie and Khanna sponsored a discharge petition on Tuesday to push for the release of all the Epstein files that the government has, with the pair scouting enough GOP signatures to force a vote on the bill.
As of Tuesday night, Republicans Massie, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene had signed. They need two more GOP signatures to hit 218 votes, assuming all 212 Democrats sign on.
Mace left the meeting with Epstein’s victims in tears on Tuesday, later explaining that she was a “recent survivor.”
Massie claimed there were concerted attempts from the Trump administration to head off the vote.
“There’s a major pressure campaign from the White House right now, and also from the speaker,” Massie said on Tuesday. “But I think there are enough Republicans who are listening to their constituents and care about these victims that we’ll get the 218 signatures we need.”
Greene, a normally full-throated Trump ally who has disagreed with him over the Epstein case, backed Massie in a post on X.
“I’m committed to doing everything possible for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Including exposing the cabal of rich and powerful elites that enabled this,” she wrote. “I’m proud to be signing @RepThomasMassie‘s discharge petition.”
A White House official told CNN, “Helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
No stranger to using distraction techniques to change the subject, Trump avoided mention of the Epstein files on his Truth Social account on Tuesday.
Massie insisted Trump’s supporter base wants to know the truth about Epstein, even if the president has actively tried to avoid the topic.
“I think he thinks he can just make this go away by telling people there’s nothing here,” Massie told ABC News.
“That is why I think that my Republican colleagues will ultimately sign this discharge petition, at least six of them, because even though on this issue, they might be against what the president’s saying, they’re actually with the president’s base.”
The Epstein documents released on Tuesday were reviewed by Democrat Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, who found that 97 percent of the contents had already been made public.
“To the American people – don’t let this fool you,“ Garcia said in a statement.
“There is no mention of any client list or anything that improves transparency or justice for victims. House Republicans are trying to make a spectacle of releasing already-public documents.”
Khanna said the information on Epstein needs to be released in full, after victims have been protected.
“The President of the United States ran on releasing the files, and the Attorney General said that there’s a client list and the files need to be released,” Khanna told MSNBC on Tuesday.
“We need to have the overarching value of trust in government be there. And in this case, as an exception, we should release everything and trust the American people to make a distinguishing discernment between someone who got a scholarship grant from Epstein and someone who was at a sex party for Epstein.”
