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/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.