Extreme Measures: To Dodge Epstein Vote, Johnson Calls Early Summer Recess

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Tuesday announced he was putting an early end to the summer legislative session, denying justice-seeking members the chance to force votes on releasing files relating to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. While the House was scheduled to stay in session through Thursday, the last action will take place on Wednesday instead, after a Rules Committee standoff on how to handle amendments and resolutions relating to Epstein. 

“The president has said clearly, and he has now ordered his DOJ to do what it is we’ve all needed DOJ to do for years now, and that is to get everything released,” Johnson told reporters. “So they’re in the process of that. There’s no purpose for Congress to push an administration to do something that they’re already doing. And so this is for political games.”

However, Johnson and President Trump themselves stand accused of playing political games with the issue. It started when, after long promising to reveal names and facts, Attorney General Pam Bondi triggered a firestorm among Trump’s supporters by suddenly attempting to close out the issue with flat declarations that there is no Epstein “client list” nor evidence he was running a blackmail operation.

Coming under fire, Trump strangely and repeatedly called the Epstein controversy a “hoax” created by Democrats, and even called his own supporters “weaklings” for falling for it. Johnson has likewise attempted to associate the push for Epstein documents as a Democratic initiative, despite intense interest among MAGA Republicans, who want to know who was furnished with underage females, and if Epstein was working for Israeli and/or US intelligence.   

Last week, shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump in 2003 sent Epstein a bawdy birthday letter with a drawing of a naked woman, an assertion that the two “have certain things in common,” and a wish for “every day [to] be another wonderful secret,” Trump announced he’d directed Bondi to seek the release of grand jury testimony from the Epstein case. However, attorney Alan Dershowitz warns there’s little chance grand jury transcripts contain information people are looking for. “Grand jury information is narrowly tailored by prosecutors only to provide sufficient evidence to result in an indictment. They don’t want to put a lot of material in the grand jury.”

Imagine being told six months ago that Speaker Mike Johnson would prematurely terminate legislative business and dissolve the House of Representatives over… Epstein

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 23, 2025

Now we have Johnson taking the Epstein ball and running home with it for the summer. Late Tuesday night, the man leading the House charge for the Epstein files, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, used social media to drag Johnson into the center of the controversy, asking: 

“[Speaker Johnson], why are you running cover for an underage sex trafficking ring and pretending this is a partisan issue? MAGA voted for this.” 

Massie is brandishing a potentially powerful legislative device that can bypass House leadership: a discharge petition to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA H.Res. 581), which he introduced with Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna. If it garners 218 signatures, the House must vote on it. With all 212 Democrats expected to sign it, it would only take six Republicans to hit 218 — and there are already 11 GOP cosponsors of the EFTA.  

Already angry at Massie for opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill and Trump’s unconstitutional bombing of Iran, Trump last month promised to back a primary challenger to Massie, and the Trump team immediately launched a Super PAC for that sole purpose. On Monday evening, Trump attacked Massie again, calling him “a real loser” and “an Embarrassment [sic] to Kentucky,” while again soliciting would-be challengers.

Talking to reporters on Tuesday, Massie connected Trump’s new attack to the push for the Epstein files: 

“Clearly, [Trump's latest attack] was because I’ve done this Epstein file [resolution]. Dogs don’t bark at parked cars. This bill is moving. This is coming to a vote. We’ve got enough Republican cosponsors to the bill — twice as many as we need right now — when they sign [the discharge petition] and every Democrat signs this, we’re going to force a vote on it. It’s not going away.”      

There were two more Epstein developments on Tuesday:

• A House Oversight subcommittee approved a motion for Chairman James Comer to issue a subpoena for Epstein’s convicted sex-trafficking sidekick, Ghislaine Maxwell. The committee plans to do so “as expeditiously as possible,” a spokesperson told NBC News. “Since Ms. Maxwell is in federal prison, the Committee will work with the Department of Justice and Bureau of Prisons to identify a date when Committee can depose her,” the spokesperson added. 
• The DOJ announced it has contacted Maxwell’s counsel to see if she would be willing to discuss the Epstein case with federal prosecutors. “I anticipate meeting with Ms. Maxwell in the coming days,” said Bondi on X.  “Until now, no administration on behalf of the Department had inquired about her willingness to meet with the government. That changes now.” Don’t fall for her spin: Bondi is only now doing this now because MAGA Republicans called for her head when she tried closing the books on Epstein.