A Democrat easily won a special election for an open House seat in Arizona, giving a bipartisan group of representatives the numbers needed to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Adelita Grijalva, who was running to succeed her late father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, has vowed to sign a House resolution to force a vote on legislation instructing the Department of Justice to release all of its investigative files on the late sex offender.
Her victory cuts the Republican House majority to 219-214, and means she can deliver a decisive signature on the petition, which needs 218 votes to pass, CNN reported.
Its co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), told the outlet that a vote on his Epstein Files Transparency Act could be coming as soon as mid-October.
The Associated Press called the race for Arizona’s 7th district early Wednesday for Grijalva, who was leading her Republican opponent with 68.5 percent of the vote.
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to call a vote on the legislation, which President Donald Trump opposes, and even released the House a day early for its August recess to avoid any votes on the files.
In response, Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna introduced a discharge petition earlier this month that would circumvent party leaders to bring the bill to the floor.
Every House Democrat has signed, along with a handful of Republican defectors. The White House has warned lawmakers that Trump views pushing for the files’ release as a “very hostile act.”
For more than a decade, Trump was good friends with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Although officials concluded the disgraced financier died by suicide, several MAGA factions have argued that he was murdered in his cell to protect his powerful clients.
Despite promising to release the files during his re-election bid, the president has since dismissed the effort as a Democrat-led “hoax” designed to distract from what he argues are “the most successful eight months of any president ever.”
Last week, Massie told CNN that the House could vote on his Epstein bill as soon as mid-October. Once Grijalva is sworn in and the needed signatures are secured, Massie must wait at least seven legislative days to bring the bill to the floor.
House leaders can also wait two legislative days before putting it to a vote. The bill is likely to face an uphill battle in the Senate if it clears the House, but it will force Republicans to go on record over the Epstein files.
Republicans are not behaving as if they believe they will face electoral consequences.
Hopefully that’s because they’re in a media bubble and think what they’re doing is popular, not because they’re going to rig or cancel the elections.
There will be a war by next summer, to cancel the election.
I think that rigging or cancelling is/was the plan but things haven’t gone as smoothly as they were hoping.
A lot of the federal employees that they thought they got rid of when they cleaned house to get rid of any oversight, have come back by a judge’s orders.
any opinion other than the second is disillusionment at best. you’re telling me the dude with a history of cheating in elections, who spent his last term sowing distrust of the voting system, may cheat again and potentially help others he likes cheat? I’m shocked.
seriously, any other take is such quintessential American “it could never happen here!” mentality. we already know what’s gonna happen.
Yeah, count on shenanigans/it being rigged:
Nothing may endanger project 2025…
Probably a bit of both. Doing whatever they want without worrying about consequences has worked out great for them so far.
Yeah. I’m not convinced the American people in 2025 will force them to face any electoral consequences for anything - rigging or not.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Even then, still question.
We all know Trump will just not sign it… right?
I’m trying to imagine the absolutely disaster that would be for him. Trump refusing to sign puts ownership of the Epstein coverup directly on him alone in a way that it really hasn’t been thus far. That might be a better outcome for Trump than the world finding out the extent of his involvement in sex trafficking with Epstein, but it is still a terrible scenario for him. Particularly if it happens before the election because it then gives Democrats something to directly rally his own base against Republicans while campaigning: Give us enough seats in Congress and we will override this veto and deliver the Epstein files.
You’re over thinking it.
“This is a witch hunt bill passed by Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Hilary Clinton (what about her emails) and radical left lunatics to insult your favorite precedent.”
Trump will sign anything that is put on that desk. And when I say anything, I mean anything
It’s a petition for Congress not a bill, so if I understand correctly the Senate nor the Executive branch would have a say in blocking it.
Maybe someone will correct me if I’m wrong
Couldn’t any Democrat with access to the unredacted documents just dump the whole pile into the record of a random committee meeting and poof it is now in the Library of Congress?
I assume no one in Congress has access or they would have just started reading them on the floor. The FBI likely only has them, which of course has had 7 years or so to make things disappear.
From my understanding, the democrats don’t have access to all of the files. Any that they’ve had access to, were released.
It’s not a matter of if the actual truth comes out, but when. At least that’s what I reckon.
There are just way too many people caught up in the web – and orders of magnitude more who have a non-zero investment in the outcome, emotionally or otherwise – for it to quietly fade away like they’re wanting it to.
This is like, the last reliably bipartisan thing we have left if you don’t count eating, sleeping and shitting. I would say it’s even beyond that - pretty much everyone who’s not a pedo (which I would hope is, like, at the very minimum 99%) wants the same thing – for the truth to come out, and for comprehensive justice to be served.
I’m not going to make it part of my personality and larp as an activist, filling the Internet with low-effort spam, or claiming that everything else that ever happens is “a distraction” from this, no.
The dam will break, the ticking thingy eventually explodes, and I can be very patient. I just hope we still have a functioning justice system when it does.
It’s never coming out in its entirety. Ever.
Another Democrat: pulls a Fetterman and votes no
All this means is another GOP in Democrat clothing will have to reveal themselves to keep the shit sealed. We have no idea how many shills are wearing a fake cap right now.
We all know he’s in there. He literally bragged about molesting children before he was elected. What is this going to change?
He’ll lose some of his followers and that’s about it.
It’s good for many reasons that the Republican candidate lost, but unless I am mistaken, the Republican candidate also said that he would sign the petition to release the Epstein files if he won.
You trusted him to actually do it?
I don’t trust any politicians. There are even politicians who switch parties at some time after they’re elected.
You’re not supposed to trust a politician. You’re supposed to bullwhip them if they don’t follow their campaign promises.
Where’s the whip?
In the minority party.
Both candidates in this election pledged to release the files though so it’s less that the democrats winning that made this possible and more that this vote can now be cast.
