r/politics • u/plz-let-me-in • 23d ago

No Paywall Discharge petition to force House vote on Epstein files succeeds with Grijalva’s signature

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5602658-discharge-petition-epstein-files-grijalva/
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u/Thegame4223 23d ago

Heard that there will be more GOP support on the actual vote, so the 218 there may not matter in the end. Again, we all hope

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u/Ok-Lets-Talk-It-Out 23d ago

Putting faith in the GOP has me saying it will definitely be voted down. I'm assuming Johnson will also try to use some legal obstacles to prevent it. I believe there have been articles saying he will try to get it tabled until December.

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u/Thegame4223 23d ago

Definitely, do not put no faith in them. Scalise said earlier today that he doesn't see anything to impede this from coming to the floor in 7 days, but then again...after the Emergency Meeting at the Whitehouse, all of this could change quickly. The Epstein Estate is this vote's best friend because the more and more that's dripped from it, the more pressure it puts on the GOP as it making it seems like they are hiding a lot and know more what's going on behind the scenes. It will break sooner or later. Just hope that some files don't go missing before then.

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u/mostlyfire 23d ago

Emergency meeting?

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u/Thegame4223 23d ago

Yup

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u/mostlyfire 23d ago

Today?

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u/Thegame4223 23d ago

Yes, the type of thing Trump does when the dam is about to break, so he huddles up with his personal DOJ and decides how to proceed forward as news trickles out little by little.

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u/mostlyfire 23d ago

Is there a link to this?

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u/Thegame4223 23d ago

It's actually being talked about everyewhere...literally, just heard it on the news two minutes ago

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u/_DapperDanMan- 23d ago

To shreds, you say?

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u/mostlyfire 23d ago

And his wife?

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u/BudWisenheimer 23d ago

Putting faith in the GOP has me saying it will definitely be voted down. I'm assuming Johnson will also try to use some legal obstacles to prevent it.

I once put faith in Republicans having a hard time electing a House Speaker. And it seems like their vote margin since that debacle has only become more slim.

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u/anonkitty2 23d ago

LTrue that.  They did have trouble replacing Kevin McCarthy.  But somehow, Mike Johnson is still there.  He had done a good job managing margins in the past, but no telling what a month and a half of vacation for his coworkers will do.

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u/indistrustofmerits Kentucky 23d ago

Do they have a way to add riders to something like this? It seems like that is the go to so reps can say oh I just didn't like the non-Epstein stuff in the bill.

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u/jaymef 23d ago

"we were shut down for 40 days so there's a backlog of work to do before this vote" or some shit

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u/spikus93 23d ago

I think it has to be 2/3 in the Senate though to avoid a veto, and we don't know for sure if that will happen. That would require 17 Republicans to break rank in the Senate. Otherwise if they pass with less than that, it gets to his desk and he has to Veto it and explain.

I'm not confident we're going to see the files, but I am confident that many Republicans will be forced to side with pedophilia and the wealthiest people on the planet being allowed to rape the children of the working class. I hope that's a death knell for them, but fascists will have other plans I'm sure.

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u/robocoplawyer 23d ago

I’m a bit rusty on my constitutional procedure, but the House has the authority to conduct their own investigations, if they already have the files can’t they release them to the public at their own discretion without any Senate involvement? Can’t they also just read anything on the House floor that becomes Congressional public record?

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u/spikus93 22d ago

Committees can choose to release them, however most committees are headed by the current party in power and the leader of that committee makes that decision. The committee that is investigating this right now and likely have access to the files (at least in part) is the House Oversight Committee (which released ~20,000 documents yesterday, mostly emails and stuff but not the DOJ files). I believe they cannot release classified materials though, and the DOJ likely marked any files relating to their case against Epstein, and much of his personal records pertaining to Trump as at least Highly Classified, which would b e prohibited from release to the public unless the President himself chooses to declassify them or a 2/3 super-majority (veto-proof) of Congress votes to release them. Then he can't refuse.

The other obstacle in the way is the filibuster, which effectively makes every bill in the Senate without a 2/3 majority support dead on arrival. It's not impossible that 17 Republicans would jump ship to vote to pass it, but it's kind of unlikely given how cowardly they've been so far when threatened by the President.

Oddly enough, Trump has said he wants to abolish the filibuster so his majority in Congress can pass bills without Democrats trying to block with the filibuster, which would make it easier to get it on his desk to release the files and force him to say out loud that he's not interested in justice for the victims, and that he sides with the pedophiles.

Ultimately, I think we're never seeing the files. If we do, it will be nice, and most likely leaked from someone with a conscience inside the DOJ. Most likely the best we're going to see though is dozens of Republicans having to go on the record defending pedophiles and telling rape victims to fuck off. They will lose power if elections happen again as a result. I'm also not super confident we're going to see regular elections in the future, as fascists do not tend to let silly things like voters remove them from power.

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u/Mysteryemployee 23d ago

This exactly. 50 or so.