Democrats wanted to vote on Epstein list release. So Republicans took a 5-week break
Members of the U.S. House didn’t show up for work Thursday morning.
And Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from Raleigh, is calling out her colleagues for leaving town early to start their August break.
“The House of Representatives is adjourning today for a five week recess,” Ross wrote in a news release Wednesday afternoon. “Not because our work is complete. Far from it — the House has passed only two of the 12 annual appropriations bills required to prevent the federal government from shutting down.”
The federal government shuts down on Sept. 30 if Congress fails to pass its 12 appropriations bills by then. Fall typically kicks off a series of shutdown threats, followed by continuing resolutions that continue into the spring.
Ross also drilled down into what Congress hasn’t done for North Carolina.
“We’ve done nothing to help the people of Western North Carolina still slowly recovering and rebuilding after Hurricane Helene,” Ross wrote. “And we haven’t even finished the reauthorization of the Weather Act, bipartisan legislation that I’ve been working on to improve forecasting and prevent the kind of devastation we’ve witnessed in recent weeks in North Carolina and Texas.”
So why did Congress leave?
“Because they are terrified of the growing furor over President Trump’s refusal to release the Epstein files,” Ross wrote. “In embarrassment and desperation, they are running for the exits while the American people watch in disbelief.”
Donald Trump and the Jeffrey Epstein files
Trump was a well-known friend of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted child sex offender, who was facing charges for sex trafficking when he died in prison in 2019, while Trump was president.
The far-right believed that there was more to Epstein’s death than was reported and that Epstein kept a client list to blackmail the rich and powerful, conspiracy theories that Trump played into during his campaigns.
Trump said he would release the Epstein files if he were reelected, and in February, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, said the client list was on her desk for review.
So Trump supporters were taken aback when the Department of Justice and the FBI announced in recent weeks that the client list didn’t exist and that nothing else would be released.
Trump has tried to distance himself from the story, but Republicans haven’t been able to navigate the fallout or outlast a relentless news cycle on the matter.
Congress goes home instead of voting
Democrats and Republicans in Congress have both threatened action to bring the House floor to a vote forcing the Epstein files to be released.
Democrats have now tried to bring that up in the Rules Committee three times in recent weeks. Last week, Republicans filed their own motion to hold a floor vote that would simply say the files should be released, but not force the Trump administration to do anything. Both sides accused the other of being insincere in their efforts.
But things came to a head Monday, when Democrats went for their third attempt to force a vote in the Rules Committee on the matter. Instead of allowing their motion to move forward, Republicans recessed the meeting and never returned.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican from Banner Elk, chairs the committee, but was not present at the time the recess was ordered.
Because of the procedures of the House, this move ground the chamber’s work to a halt.
And Johnson didn’t force the issue, instead dismissing Congress a day early to start their five-week August recess, which takes place annually.
The Senate remains in for at least another week, though Trump is requesting they forgo it to continue working on his nominations.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, joins a growing chorus of Republicans who believe the files should become public. He has repeatedly said to “release the damn files,” believing the story won’t otherwise go away.
“This isn’t leadership,” Ross said, of Johnson’s decision, “it’s cowardice— and our country deserves better.”
