Mike Johnson to start House recess early to block bipartisan pu…

Amid the President Donald Trump’s fumbling of the Jeffrey Epstein files issue, other Republican leaders have effectively blocked the files from being made public despite outrage from MAGA base.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that the House session will be cut short on Wednesday, not Friday as originally scheduled. This is likely to avoid the Epstein Files Transparency Act, an effort led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force the House to vote on releasing the full, unredacted Epstein files.

“We all deserve to know what’s in the Epstein files, who’s implicated, and how deep this corruption goes,” Massie said in a statement last week. “Americans were promised justice and transparency. We’re introducing a discharge petition to force a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on releasing the complete files. If your Representative won’t sign the discharge petition, ask why.”

As of Tuesday, Massie’s bill has 24 co-sponsors, including Reps. Tim Burchett (R-TN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Jamie Raskin (D-MD). Heartland-area representatives Eric Burlison (R-MO), Tom Barrett (R-MI), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Max Miller (R-OH) and Debbie Dingell (D-MI) are also co-sponsoring the bill.

After Johnson’s press conference on Tuesday, Massie responded by accusing Johnson and Trump of avoiding the issue. He also said he believes that the issue will not go away during the month-long recess in August.

“I think that was the admonition of our speaker in there, was just sort of, ‘stick your head in the sand, let the administration maybe dissipate this by dribbling some stuff out,’” Massie said. “I mean, I’m heavily paraphrasing.”

.@RepThomasMassie (R-KY) on Epstein and rules committee: “I think that was the admonition of our speaker in there, was just sort of, stick your head in the sand, let the administration maybe dissipate this by dribbling some stuff out. I mean, I’m heavily paraphrasing.” pic.twitter.com/IMrmbwAFxC

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 22, 2025

In an X post, Khanna called Johnson’s decision a betrayal of the people.

Shutting down the House to hide the Epstein files is a betrayal of people who simply want the truth. This is why people are so cynical about Washington. https://t.co/6XfYcKd9BN

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) July 22, 2025

One of Trump’s many campaign promises last year were to release the so-called “Epstein files,” which are alleged to have a client list with the names of people involved with the alleged serial child sex trafficker’s operation.

In 2019, it was reported that Trump referred to Epstein as a longtime friend and fellow fan of younger women, which he said in a 2002 profile of Epstein by New York Magazine.

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump said. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

A report published by The Wall Street Journal last week found that in 2003, Trump sent Epstein a “bawdy” letter celebrating the latter’s birthday, with it ending, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump denies ever writing the letter and filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the publication in response.

In July 2019, Epstein was arrested by the FBI and evidence of a massive child sex-trafficking operation was found in his Manhattan townhouse. Epstein was then found dead in his jail cell under suspicious circumstances, but it was officially ruled a suicide. To this day, Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell is the only person to be prosecuted and imprisoned in connection to Epstein, even though a memo from the Justice Department and the FBI from this month suggests more than 1,000 girls were victims of his operation.

Several high-profile figures have been implicated in connection to Epstein’s private jet flight logs, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In addition to Trump himself, several of his Republican allies called for the release of the list in recent years and months, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino, Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Johnson himself before Tuesday. Before claiming that the Epstein client list does not exist, Bondi assured the public in February that the records related to the case were on her desk waiting for her review.

Despite his allies and base clamoring for the files to be released to the public, Trump has unconvincingly urged everyone to stop talking about Epstein in general, leading to a slew of negative attention online for his apparent coverup of the entire case. In a Truth Social post from July 12, Trump also walked back the false claim that the files do not exist, replacing it with an even more inauthentic lie that Democrats like former President Barack Obama wrote the files.

The Republican majority, as subservient to Trump as ever, is also taking steps to downplay the significance of the Epstein case. Last Monday, Khanna called for an amendment in the House Rules Committee to force Bondi and the Department of Justice to preserve and release any records related to Epstein. The amendment was defeated by the Republican majority on the committee, with seven members of the GOP voting it down while one Republican, Ralph Norman (R-SC), voted with the four Democrats on the issue.

“Whose side are you on? That’s really what this Epstein file issue has become,” Khanna told MSNBC on Monday. “It’s not just about knowing who’s being protected, the rich and the powerful, in terms of who had interaction with Jeffrey Epstein. It’s the sense that people have that the government is too beholden to certain interests, who have their thumb on the scale. And that they’re not working for ordinary people.”

“This is something that many Republicans believe should happen.”

After Massie was one of two Republican members of the House to vote “no” on Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump has launched a public campaign to primary the Kentucky congressman, which has accelerated since Massie has spearheaded the release of the Epstein files. Massie has served in the U.S. House since 2012, where he has withstood several primaries with little competition despite numerous controversies.