Speaker Mike Johnson said he would send lawmakers home early for their summer recess in order to head off Democratic demands for votes on calling for the release of files from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr. Johnson implied that his concerns about transparency had been alleviated, for now, by Mr. Trump’s move to authorize Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Mr. Epstein. That is a far cry from the breadth of information the president’s supporters have demanded, yet it appeared to be enough to persuade the speaker.

Edit

This thread used to link to https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/07/22/us/trump-news/0d8c9050-dee0-5253-89b2-30e4737090c1, a live thread linked from NYT’s “Breaking news” newsletter, which headlined it “Johnson Shutting Down House Early to Block Epstein Vote”. Now that the NYT has made a standalone article, I’ve replaced this post’s link with that article’s gift link, courtesy of the relevant subcommag.

  • Tempus Fugit@midwest.social
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    3 days ago

    I just wish the right-wing base held their representatives to a higher standard or at least to the standard they hold Dems.

    • TheCleric@lemmy.org
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      3 days ago

      You mean you wish they made up insane stories from absolute fantasy to make the standard of goodness fluctuate with their whims? I dunno…

    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      First thing Democrats should do when they get back is demand the files be released again. Not like Republicans will allow anything that actually benefits the public to be done, might as well just troll them.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        And they should absolutely run on that - “I will release (or support the release of) the Epstein Files on Day One.”

        Every Democratic candidate should say that over and over. Don’t dwell on it, don’t expand on it, just make that statement. Make the MAGAs blather about why it’s good to support child molesters.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          And they should absolutely run on that - “I will release (or support the release of) the Epstein Files on Day One.”

          They should have run on that in 2024. Made a big huge issue of it during the campaign.

          Instead we got “Look! dick cheney likes me!”

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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            3 days ago

            It wouldn’t have been as effective back then. Now that they’ve finally come to the moment of release, they refused to do it, after making it one of the center points of the campaign. For many, it WAS the campaign. Now that they’ve finally balked at the finish line, there is no speculation about their position.

            NOW, is when the Dems can finally take real advantage of this situation of the MAGAs making, and they should seize this opportunity and explore it mercilessly. The MAGAs certainly would.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        unfortunately the BBB tax/medicaid cut time bombs will be in effect when that happens making the dumb magats suddenly forget about the epstein files.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    Trying to imagine how my employer would feel if I left my job early without doing the work.

    • infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net
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      4 days ago

      The way Republicans are handling this is actually extremely unpopular with the MAGA crowd too, it’s basically the first time that Trump’s base has been in outright disagreement with him on an issue. Pretty much every political demographic in the country is in agreement re: Epstein disclosures. I think we need to show some critical support to the majority of Republicans who want the full files released, at least on this specific issue, in order to keep the pressure up until congress comes back from their big long vacation. Everybody is angry about this. They want it, we want it, let’s keep the energy up.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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        3 days ago

        How do you even justify NOT releasing the files? Nobody has offered a single believable reason to hide them, other than to protect bad people from responsibility. It’s pretty hard to stand in the spotlight and claim you are doing the right thing.

        • rainwall@piefed.social
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          The only possible justifications are “to protect victims” and “to protect people from baseless accusations” if there really is no proof of anything.

          The first can be done with retractions. The latter is the issue for MAGA, as trump and his boosters have been claiming for years that the files are full of vile, evil shit that is being hidden and that they would expose everyone. They claimed this for half a decade, and were saying the truth was about to come out just months ago. They claimed they put 10,000 FBI agents on the case to verify the files, and gave MAGA influencers a “part 1” dossier to splash around.

          Suddenly, a few months later there is nothing to see, even as more and more leaks about Trump being a pedophile hit the news.

          Now they are playing games about releasing “credible” reports (i.e nothing with Trump in them or any republicans) and releasing everything but the files.

    • jonathan7luke@lemmy.zip
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      4 days ago

      While I understand the sentiment, I don’t feel like that’s a particularly fresh revelation… If anything, I was surprised at the handful of dissenting voices on the right. Even before this latest wave of Epstein news, I was willing to bet Trump could just straight up admit to pedophilia and still wouldn’t lose much of his base.

      • capital_sniff@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I think the Trump regime is getting push back on Epstein because they made a big deal of it during the campaign. And a bunch of their talking heads piled on the Epstein will out a bunch of Dems fantasy.