House Democrats launched a bid Wednesday to subpoena President Donald Trump’s Justice Department for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, goading GOP lawmakers to defy Trump and Republican leadership to support the action.
Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Committee on Oversight made a motion for the subpoena Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the House was scheduled to end its July work session and depart Washington for a monthlong break.
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.
During a brief break in the meeting, Higgins told reporters he expected the motion for the subpoena to pass with some changes.
“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.
The move by Democrats showed how they were doing practically everything in their power to force Republicans to act on the Epstein files. 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 to an issue that Trump has unsuccessfully implored his supporters to forget about.
“They’re fleeing our work, our job and sending us back home because they don’t want to vote to release these files. This is something that they ran on. This is something that they talked about: the importance of transparency, holding pedophiles accountable,” Lee said.
Democratic leaders are hoping to make the issue about much more than just Epstein, who died in his New York jail cell six years ago while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
“Why haven’t Republicans released the Epstein files to the American people? It’s reasonable to conclude that Republicans are continuing to protect the lifestyles of the rich and the shameless, even if that includes pedophiles,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference. “So it’s all connected.”
It comes as both parties are gearing up to take their messaging to voters on Trump’s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill. For Republicans, it’s “beautiful” legislation that will spark economic growth; for Democrats, it’s an “ugly” gift mostly to the richest Americans that undermines health care for low-income people.
Yet as furor has grown on the right over the Trump administration’s reversal on promises related to Epstein, several Democrats have seized on the opportunity to divide Republicans on the issue.
“This goes to a fundamental sense of, ‘Is our government co-opted by rich and powerful people that isn’t looking out for ordinary Americans? Or can we have a government that looks out for ordinary Americans?’” said Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who has put forward a bipartisan bill meant to force release of the files.
Republican leaders accuse Democrats of caring about the issue purely for political gain. They point out that the Department of Justice held on to the Epstein investigation through the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump’s Justice Department is also seeking the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the Epstein case, though that effort is unlikely to produce new revelations.
The House Oversight Committee, with support from Republicans, also advanced Tuesday a subpoena for Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for a deposition.
However, those lawmakers who want Congress to take a stronger role in the Epstein files have cautioned that Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls, may be an unreliable witness.
“It’s a good idea, but it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has pushed the bipartisan bill to pry the records from the Justice Department.