US House Delays Vote on Epstein Documents Release

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has decided not to introduce a resolution this week requiring the US administration to release Jeffrey Epstein's documents before the August summer break.

Republican leaders agreed with the White House to give the administration enough time to release the documents on its own initiative, following President Donald Trump's decision to release information from the grand jury related to the case, as reported by Politico.

This plan comes amid disagreements within the Republican Party on how to handle the sensitive Epstein case. Johnson and his team had prepared a non-binding resolution to provide political cover for Republicans against Democratic criticism of the party's handling of the Epstein case, the convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019.
The purpose of this resolution was to provide an alternative to the legislation supported by Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, which could compel the administration to disclose information about the Epstein case. Massie and Khanna seek to pass their legislation through a "discharge petition," a method that allows members to force a vote in the House if they obtain 218 signatures, and this effort gains momentum quickly.
However, things changed last Thursday when Trump announced that he would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to begin the process of disclosing grand jury testimonies in the criminal Epstein case. This announcement followed a report in the Wall Street Journal stating that Trump sent a controversial birthday message to Epstein decades ago, a claim denied by the US President who is now seeking to sue the newspaper for defamation.