Republican Bid to Help Trump Move Past Epstein Falls Flat

When House Republican leaders rushed to leave Washington for a long August break, they seemed desperate to quell the anger among their supporters about the Trump administration’s backtracking on a promise to release files related to its investigation of the accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

But halfway through a five-week congressional recess, the clamor shows little sign of quieting. While Republicans had hoped that legal rulings might insulate them from having to confront the issue, the courts have yet to intervene. Back in their districts, lawmakers have continued to face questions about the Epstein investigation from their constituents. And the Justice Department, which ignored a Friday deadline from Senate Democrats and faces another on Tuesday to comply with a bipartisan subpoena to provide the materials to Congress, has yet to release anything.

At the same time, Democrats, in some cases with the help of Republicans, have laid a series of procedural traps that will make it all but impossible for the G.O.P. to avoid confronting the Epstein issue again when Congress reconvenes in September.

“We’re going to keep the pressure up — 100 percent,” Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, said at an event in Iowa this month. “As often as we can, until we know exactly what happened, why it happened.”

Lawmakers of both parties concede that the Trump administration could quiet the furor over the Epstein files on Capitol Hill and nationwide by simply releasing them to the public. But so far, the Justice Department has offered little public indication that it might do so.

All the while, several efforts connected to Mr. Epstein, a disgraced financier who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019, have been percolating and threaten to disrupt a busy month in which Congress also faces a Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government and avert a shutdown.

Chief among them may be a maneuver led by Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who is a frequent Trump critic, to try to force a floor vote on the release of the files. Such a vote would thrust Republicans into a politically thorny position between Mr. Trump and constituents who are unhappy with the administration’s handling of the case.

Before leaving Washington, Mr. Massie and Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, filed what is known as a discharge petition, which allows any member of the House to force legislation to the floor if a majority of members — 218 — sign on. Because of arcane procedural rules, the pair cannot start collecting signatures until they return in September, but they appear to have more than enough support to succeed.

The timing all but guaranteed that the issue would hang over lawmakers throughout the August recess and that Republican leaders would be forced to address it when they returned. While they could try to table the effort, several rank-and-file Republicans earlier this year blocked a similar attempt to circumvent a measure that had majority support.

So far, 43 other lawmakers, 11 of them Republicans, have signed on to Mr. Massie and Mr. Khanna’s initiative. Last week, the pair announced plans for a news conference with victims of Mr. Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, to be held outside the Capitol on lawmakers’ second day back from their break.

Last month, Democrats effectively paralyzed the committee — and by extension, Republicans’ legislative agenda — with the threat of such votes. Facing pressure from their constituents, Republicans were reluctant to take up the issue, essentially forcing the committee to adjourn and keeping substantive legislation from advancing.

Matthew Bonaccorsi, a spokesman for Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the panel, said the committee had “no plans to let up pressure on this until Republicans release the Epstein files.”

Republican leaders never found a solution to the committee’s impasse, which led them to send the House home a day ahead of schedule. But they seemed to take solace in the Trump administration’s request that federal judges release transcripts of grand jury testimony in three cases related to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell.

Both Speaker Mike Johnson and Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 Republican, suggested that such a move might help alleviate concerns, adding that the House could not address the Epstein files while the courts were weighing in.

“That process is underway right now,” Mr. Johnson said last month. “Now, we’ve got to zealously guard that and protect it and make sure it’s happening. And if it doesn’t, then we’ll take appropriate action when everybody returns here.”

Yet so far, federal judges in two of those three cases have denied the government’s requests. A judge overseeing Ms. Maxwell’s case said that the Justice Department’s suggestion that grand jury testimony “would bring to light meaningful new information” was “demonstrably false.” A third judge, who oversaw Mr. Epstein’s 2019 case, is still considering whether to unseal grand jury materials connected to that prosecution.

And Republicans and Democrats alike have argued that the grand jury testimony falls far short of the promise that Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials had made. Instead, they have turned to legal maneuvers meant to force the Justice Department to provide the Epstein files to Congress.

This month, the Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Ms. Bondi asking the Justice Department to give the committee its files related to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell by Aug. 19.

The committee also sent subpoenas to former officials who were linked to the Justice Department at times that it was grappling with legal matters related to Mr. Epstein. After Mr. Barr, several other officials are scheduled to be deposed over the next two months, and each hearing is likely to generate renewed attention on the Epstein case.

Should the Justice Department fail to meet its subpoena deadline, that would prompt an outcry from Democratic lawmakers and force more attention to the issue. And Mr. Comer and other Republicans may confront a choice between backing the president and defending their powers of congressional oversight through a legal battle that might take considerable time to work its way through the courts.

Senate Democrats have already started to pressure Republicans over the matter using a little-known and infrequently tested maneuver to try to force Ms. Bondi to turn over the Epstein files.

Under a provision of federal law, government agencies are required to hand over relevant information if any five members of the Senate’s chief oversight committee requests it. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and seven other Democrats asked the Justice Department to give them Epstein-related materials by Aug. 15. They also asked that a briefing be held for the committee’s staff before the end of the month.

So far, the committee has not received any material, and the briefing has not been scheduled, according to two people familiar with the matter who said they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Mr. Schumer has said that Democrats are prepared to seek legal recourse if the Trump administration does not meet the letter’s deadlines. On Friday, he began publicly pressuring Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Republican leader, to appoint a lawyer who would defend the Senate’s legal authority for congressional oversight.

“If he chooses complicity — we’ll take them to court ourselves,” Mr. Schumer wrote in a social media post.

Democrats have also signaled that they will continue to try to bring the Epstein case up for debate on the Senate floor in an attempt to force Republicans to record positions on the issue.

Hours before the Senate left for the summer, a group of Democrats sought to win quick adoption of a measure that would direct the Justice Department to publicly release all files tied to the investigation. As expected, Republicans objected.