House Democrats initiated a motion to subpoena President Donald Trump's Justice Department for files related to the sex trafficking investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. This occurred as the House was set to end its July work session. The Republican chairman of the subcommittee postponed the vote, leaving uncertainty regarding support from GOP members. Democrats pressured Republicans, framing the vote as a choice between supporting Trump or acting on the Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson has resisted action, claiming the Trump administration is already releasing the information.
The subcommittee's Republican chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, postponed a vote on the matter until the end of the meeting. While several Republicans on the panel are members of a right-wing faction and have called for the release of the files, it was not clear whether they would vote for the subpoena.
"If the Republican Party, if our colleagues on this committee don't join us in this vote, then what they're essentially doing is joining President Donald Trump in complicity," Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who made the motion for the subpoena, told reporters outside the hearing room.
House Speaker Mike Johnson - caught between demands from Trump and clamoring from his own members for the House to act - has resisted calls for action and prepared to send the House home a day early. Johnson told reporters earlier Wednesday there was no need to vote on legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is "already doing everything within their power to release them."
Yet Democrats have delighted this week in pressing Republicans to support the release of the files. Their efforts halted the GOP's legislative agenda for the week and turned attention towards the Epstein investigation.
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