The reason it feels like Congress doesn’t exist anymore is because it functionally doesn’t, but also because this summer vacation was extended. House Republicans tucked tail and left early after fearing the possibility of having to vote for transparency about the biggest underage sex ring in U.S. history, which gives you a good sense of where we are with that party right now.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had six weeks to figure out how to manage the intra-party rebellion over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. Republican members were still getting an earful at home, so ducking a vote wasn’t practical. But Johnson needed to uphold his prime directive of acting as a human shield for the president and keeping his name out of any revelations.
So after weeks of rumination, here’s what Johnson came up with: a resolution, hastily added to the week’s floor voting schedule on Monday, that would “direct” the House Oversight Committee to continue investigating the federal cases against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, which is already in progress. In other words, Johnson would have the House vote to do something it is effectively already doing.
The word you may be grasping for is “misdirection.”
This resolution is being floated for a vote to keep people away from a bipartisan bill from Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Tom Massie (R-KY), which would directly compel the relevant government agencies to release all relevant files. Yesterday, Khanna and Massie launched the discharge petition process for their bill. If it gets signatures from a majority of House members, that bill will have to come to the floor, and the co-authors say they already have that many in hand. They’re holding a press conference this morning with victims of Epstein’s sex ring.
Johnson’s gambit is to claim that he’s already giving supporters of releasing the files a vote, so they shouldn’t have to sign onto the discharge petition. That is the hard sell that both the House Republican leadership and the White House, which is apparently whipping members to not sign onto the discharge petition, are making.
This is as much about Johnson controlling what gets on his House floor (which could trigger other bypass attempts, like on a congressional stock trading ban), but it’s based on a misimpression that the “attaboy Oversight Committee” resolution is the same as the Khanna-Massie bill.
Amna Nawaz:
Welcome to the "News Hour."
Congress is back in Washington tonight, and the clock is already ticking. Lawmakers have less than one month to avoid a government shutdown.
Geoff Bennett:
On the table, a fierce fight over billions in spending cuts, some 30,000 pages worth of Jeffrey Epstein-related files that Republicans just posted tonight online, and the Senate moving to fast-track President Trump's nominees.
Our congressional correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, joins us now.
So, Lisa, it's always great to see you.
Let's start with the possible government shutdown at the end of the month. We are weeks away. How likely is it?
Lisa Desjardins:
It is possible.
Let's take people through exactly how this is going to work, what we know. First of all, the deadline is September 30 to fund most of government. Now, any deal needs 60 Senate votes. So, of course, that means likely at least seven Democrats would have to get on board.
Now, that's led to this situation where, of course, Democrats know they have leverage here. They don't have leverage in a lot of cases. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries today told reporters, including myself, that he's looking for a bipartisan solution. But what that really means is, he wants some concessions.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):
That spending bill has to be both bipartisan, a product of negotiation, and it's got to serve the interests of the American people in terms of their health, safety, national security, and economic well-being.
Lisa Desjardins:
Health, safety, national security, economic, that covers everything. So, there's a lot on the table for him.
And this is the man really to watch, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. It's his vote that Republicans will need to get a funding bill through, or it could be his decision to try to go all the way to a government shutdown. It is very much on the table, a risky decision for Democrats either way.
The pressure is on them to stand up to President Trump, try and get some policy changes. But some Democrats say a shutdown might benefit Trump.
Geoff Bennett:
And why are they feeling the pressure this week, Lisa?
Lisa Desjardins:
Right.
It seems like the 30th is a long way away. It's not. One reason is because, in the middle of the month, there will be a recess, a full week. So really it's just about two or three weeks they have. And, remember, they're only in town three days a week mostly.
Geoff Bennett:
Let's talk about the other big news tonight.
The House Oversight Committee released tens of thousands of pages of documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case. There had been Republicans calling for more transparency, and this appears to be a step in that direction?
Lisa Desjardins:
Right.
And a reminder, we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein. He's the financier accused of sex crimes. His conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was sent to prison for those crimes. He also was connected with many high-profile individuals, friends with Donald Trump, though Trump has disavowed him since.
Here's what we got tonight, documents like this, 33,000-plus pages of them. But I want to point out, this document, our producer Matt Loffman quickly figured out, is public. This is not something that is special to the Department of Justice. This is something you could find on the Supreme Court's Web site. This is Ghislaine Maxwell's — part of her appeal case.
So a lot of this are legal documents. Going through them, we really don't know how much of it is new. But I am told from House Oversight Republicans that these are all the documents that DOJ has given them so far.
Democrats have said, first of all, that these 34,000 documents is just 1 percent of the total. Now, Republicans are worried about something else going on. That's a bipartisan effort by two — two Republican — two members of Congress, Democratic Representative Ro Khanna there on the right and then Thomas Massie of Kentucky. They are trying to make an end run around House leadership to force release of all documents, make them all public.
But the question is if the votes are there. And, today, Speaker Johnson made it clear he doesn't want that effort. And I think this release tonight is an attempt to try and take votes away from that end run, so a lot in play. Do we know that much more about Jeffrey Epstein tonight? Not yet. We will see.
Geoff Bennett:
Yes. Well, more to come on that front.
Washington, D.C. — Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement after Chairman James Comer released to the public the partial batch of Epstein files from the Department of Justice, consisting largely of already public information. The original partial release failed to meet the Department’s legal obligation to provide the full, unredacted documents to the Committee while protecting victims and censoring child sexual abuse materials.
“The 33,000 pages of Epstein documents James Comer has decided to ‘release’ were already mostly public information. To the American people – don’t let this fool you.
After careful review, Oversight Democrats have found that 97% of the documents received from the Department of Justice were already public. 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. Pam Bondi has said the client list was on her desk. She could release it right now if she wanted to.
While Comer tries to give cover to Trump by re-releasing public documents, House Democrats are fighting for real transparency. Pam Bondi must comply with our subpoena immediately, and release all of the documents. The American people demand it.”
Oversight Committee Democrats’ initial review revealed that of the 33,295 pages of documents released to the Committee, only three percent contained any new information. The remaining 97% of pages included information previously released by the Department of Justice, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s office.
These include:
- Video from the Metropolitan Correctional Center from the night of Epstein’s death
- Supreme Court filings from Ghislaine Maxwell
- Court filings from U.S. v. Maxwell
- Court transcript from U.S. v. Maxwell
- A Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report on Epstein’s death
- A memo from Attorney General Pamela Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel on releasing the Epstein files
- Communications between the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice regarding the death of Epstein
- Police reports and court filings from Epstein’s criminal case in Florida
The only new disclosure:
- Less than 1,000 pages from the Customs and Border Protection’s log of flight locations of the Epstein plane from 2000-2014 and forms consistent with reentry back to the U.S.
###
Washington, D.C. — Following a new D.C. District Court ruling in the landmark antitrust case involving Google, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement:
“The
court previously ruled that Google’s search business is an illegal
monopoly, but now the judge’s remedies fail to hold Google accountable
for breaking the law. Instead of restoring competition and ending
Google’s dominance, this ruling is a slap on the wrist for unlawful
behavior that warranted the breakup of this tech giant.
“Now it’s up to the Trump Justice Department and state attorneys general to appeal or risk emboldening even more lawbreaking by Big Tech monopolies.
“While the Trump Justice Department considers an appeal to break up Google, YouTube and Google executives are negotiating with Trump’s lawyers to settle a dubious case for potentially millions of dollars and raising serious concerns of corruption in plain sight.”
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