After months of infighting and a five-week hiatus from Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers returned to Washington bracing for a fight on the Jeffery Epstein controversy.
By the end of the day Tuesday, more Republicans seemed to be on the same page.
Several tempered their calls for greater transparency after the House Oversight Committee dropped thousands of pages of documents furnished by the Department of Justice, with even some of the loudest advocates for transparency calling the push for more documents “moot.”
While it’s not the unfiltered version of the documents that some MAGA influencers have called for, even some of the House’s most fervent Republican advocates for transparency sounded reluctantly satisfied.
“I do know that what was released today is everything that the DOJ has, minus the victim information,” one such vocal supporter of releasing the files, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, told reporters, despite acknowledging she had not yet reviewed the documents.
The Epstein-related chaos reached a fever pitch just before the House’s August recess, with Speaker Mike Johnson sending lawmakers home early, apparently hoping the breather away from D.C. would diffuse rising tensions within his conference. But after hearing from constituents who pleaded for updates on the Epstein files, lawmakers returned Tuesday bracing for a continued feud, with Epstein-related meetings, press conferences and bill introductions dotting the House’s first week back.
But then, Tuesday evening, conservatives got much of what they asked for: 30,000 pages of Epstein files from the Department of Justice.
Luna’s comment, alongside similar sentiments from several of her fellow conservatives, provided one of the first indications in months that many of the lawmakers pushing for more transparency on Epstein could be ready to stand down on their hunt for new information.
Of course, in the House Republican Conference, unanimity is rarely in the cards. Rep. Thomas Massie — the leader of a petition to compel the Justice Department to release Epstein files — vowed to reporters he would move forward with his plan despite the document dump, alleging that the DOJ is withholding relevant information and distracting the public with an avalanche of previously disclosed documentation.
“This is stuff we already had, and then that will only incite people to be more upset that there’s no transparency,” Massie told reporters after the news of the document dump. “That’s my concern.”
Part of the challenge for Massie, however, is that the document dump emboldened the White House to whip against his petition with threats, arguing that his effort is now duplicative.
“Helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the oversight committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration,” an administration official told NOTUS in a statement.
Two of Massie’s conservative colleagues, Reps. Ralph Norman and Tim Burchett, dismissed his efforts as “moot” after the release of the files from the House Oversight Committee. That’s a serious blow to Massie’s petition, which would require 218 signatures to reach a vote on the House floor. If every Democrat signed it, Massie would still need six Republicans — including himself.
As of Tuesday evening at 10 p.m., Massie was joined as a signatory of his petition by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, as well as 134 Democrats.
Massie was eager to double down, despite the lack of enthusiasm from even his top allies.
“Those are both good friends of mine. I don’t know if they’ve had a chance to look at the documents yet to make that determination,” Massie said Tuesday evening. “From what I can tell so far, it’s not moot at all.”
Despite Massie’s kind words, the energy was far from friendly for the better part of Tuesday.
A nearly three-hour-long meeting behind closed doors with six people who allege that Epstein abused them led to a frantic, emotional afternoon on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers traded barbs over who was best navigating their party’s response to the controversy.
Even unrelated events on Capitol Hill are attracting protestors calling for the release of the Epstein files. Dozens of protestors carrying anti-Trump posters that tie him to Epstein surrounded Rep. August Pfluger’s Republican Study Committee press conference Tuesday afternoon, chanting “shame.”
In one particularly tense exchange that set the tone for an irritable post-recess environment, reporters asked Johnson about Massie’s critique that leadership’s nonbinding resolution would limit transparency by providing Republicans cover to say they did something on Epstein without actually doing anything substantive.
“I would not put much stock into what Thomas Massie says,” Johnson responded. “The House Republicans have been very consistent about maximum disclosure and maximum transparency with the Epstein file, but we had to do the way that would protect the innocent victims of these horrific crimes. We have achieved that now.”
There did appear to be a brief moment of cordiality Tuesday when members of both parties met with Epstein survivors. Rep. Maxwell Frost left the meeting early and told reporters “there was a sense of bipartisanship in the room around asking these questions,” adding, “I didn’t hear any specific kind of pointed political questions.”
“It’s incredibly sad and horrible,” Frost said. “And my hope is from this meeting, it inspires a lot of members to come out and say, no matter what you know, no matter who it impacts, we’re gonna do everything we can to uncover this.”
But by the end of the meeting, it became apparent that the flicker of bipartisan bonhomie was just a flash in the pan. Speaking with her fellow Oversight Democrats — who are generally backing Massie’s effort — Rep. Jasmine Crockett accused Republican leadership of presenting a thinly veiled attempt to cover for the president.
“All it is is that the speaker is giving an excuse, saying that this is about protecting the victims, and that’s the reason. I’m sorry, but we have tools,” Crockett told reporters in response to Johnson.
“We have things known as amendments,” she added. “You can fix anything that is broken, so if you feel as if the problem is that the legislation isn’t perfect, and Lord knows we are good about pushing out imperfect legislation in this body, we do have tools that can fix it.”
And the issue isn’t going away.
Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna are still planning to host a much-anticipated press conference with Epstein victims Wednesday.