Will Trump Release The Epstein Files?

The House to vote on releasing them in December

Speaker Mike Johnson has called members of the House of Repesentatives back to Washington. Members will vote, today if they can get there, on the budget agreement from the Senate and end the longest government shutdown in history. And then? What happens with those pesky Epstein files?

Politico:

The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid.

The cascade of action is set to begin Wednesday evening, when Johnson will swear in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown, ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.

And then?

The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.

And then?

The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.

Senate Republican leaders haven’t publicly committed to bringing up the Epstein measure if the House passes it. Republicans expect it will die in the Senate, but not before a contentious House fight.

It is more than clear that despite Donald Trump’s campaign promise to release the documents, he has no intention of letting the Epstein files see the light of day. Just as he had no intention of handing back the trove of secret documents he removed from the White House and stored unsecured in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

Johnson will do whatever Trump tells him. He may allow a vote as he has promised, but not before he and Trump try to strongarm Republican members into voting no. With Grijalva’s vote, Johnson has a mere two-vote margin.

Massie claims more Republicans will vote yes than signed onto the original petition. But he expects a failed, “last, desperate effort” by the White House to thwart the discharge petition. from Trump officials to undercut the discharge petition.

Johnson argues, Politico adds, that the vote is unnecessary:

“The bipartisan House Oversight Committee is already accomplishing what the discharge petition, that gambit, sought — and much more,” Johnson said at a news conference last month.

All “credible information” would be released to the public as part of the panel’s monthslong probe into the matter, he said, while precautions are taken to protect Epstein’s accusers.

And then?

Who at the Justice Department decides what’s credible or whose names are redacted? FBI Director Kash Patel? AG Pam Bondi?

We already know Trump’s name appears in the documents. Convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has already done her part from prison to exonerate Trump from participation in Epsteins’s child sex ring. During her softball interviews with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell repeatedly insisted that she had never witnessed any sexually inappropriate behavior by Donald Trump. Given her history, Maxwell’s idea of “sexually inappropriate” may not match yours.

Her cooperation was rewarded. Someone in the DOJ subsequently authorized an unprecedented transfer for Maxwell from a maximum security prison in Florida to a “club fed” women’s facility in Texas. This week, a whistleblower revealed that there she receives extraordinary special treatment.

According to a letter directly to Trump from Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Maxwell is waited on “hand and foot.” One prison official reports being ‘sick of having to be Maxwell’s bitch‘:

Raskin’s letter said Maxwell has received customized meals personally delivered to her cell, after-hours time in a private exercise area and access to a service puppy.

Raskin said Maxwell was also afforded private meetings with visitors arranged by the warden, complete with snacks. The guests were allowed to bring computers, which Raskin described as “an unprecedented action” that risked Maxwell having “unmonitored communications with the outside world.”

Maxwell is reportedly preparing a written request to Trump for a commutation. With her warden’s help.

Whatever is in those documents, or Trump thinks is in them, nothing about the Epstein files release is going to go cleanly. Trump is desperate to protect himself and/or others.

Given all the White House pardon activity and the concierge treatment for Maxwell, I’m not confident that reopening the House, swearing in Grijalva, and voting to release the Epstein files will actually shake them loose. I half expect a “the dog ate my homework” incident.

In a different context, a friend the other day referenced the end of Three Days of the Condor (1975). Robert Redford’s character uncovers a secret government plot and ultimately decides that his safety lies in telling The New York Times what he knows.

Cliff Robertson asks Redford ominously, “How do you know they’ll print it?”