Epstein furor upends House for second week in row [View all]
Source: The Hill
07/21/25 8:24 PM ET
The Jeffrey Epstein saga is causing chaos in the House for the second week in a row, as threats of Democrats forcing politically tough votes are prompting House GOP leadership to toss out many of their plans for the week. The trouble started as soon as lawmakers returned to Washington on Monday, when the House Rules Committee, which sets up action for bills on the floor, met to tee up votes to rescind Biden-era rules and on an immigration bill.
But Democrats, who had forced Republicans on the panel into a number of politically difficult votes on the Epstein matter last week, threatened to do so again. They planned to stage a vote on bringing legislation to the floor that would compel the release of the Epstein files. Rather than face those votes, Republicans are opting to simply not tee up any votes at all, according to multiple members of the panel — leaving the House with no floor business in the days ahead of August recess beyond noncontroversial suspension bills, fast-track measures that need two-thirds support to pass.
“Democrats keep putting all these amendments up. They want to make Epstein — and, you know, we’re all for transparency, and we’re going to do that, but what they want to do is grandstand. They said they’ll be there all night, we’ll be there all night,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the Rules Committee, told reporters. He added that the committee was not expected to return, and the House would only deal with suspension votes.
Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, confirmed that the panel would not reconvene for the rest of the week. “We’re done,” McGovern told The Hill. “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.”
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5412795-epstein-furor-house/
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