Congressman Thomas Massie is nearing victory in his quest to force a vote on forcing the disclosure of the Epstein files on the House floor. Even though Speaker Mike Johnson believes Mr. Massie’s resolution is a “moot point” because of an ongoing investigation by the House Oversight Committee, conservatives are pushing ahead with their quest for answers. 

Mr. Massie and a Democrat, Congressman Ro Khanna, have written a resolution that would require Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all of the Department of Justice’s records on Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, except for those documents that include child pornography and identifying information for victims, among other things. 

Mr. Massie has introduced what is known as a discharge petition, which would force a vote on the resolution if the petition itself gets 218 signatures. As of Wednesday morning, four Republicans including Mr. Massie have signed on to the petition, meaning he would need only two more GOP members and all Democrats to back the measure. 

The speaker and members of the House Oversight Committee met with six women on Tuesday afternoon who say they were abused by Epstein going back as far as the 1990s. After the meeting, Mr. Johnson emphasized the need to focus on the Oversight Committee investigation rather than bringing Mr. Massie’s resolution to the floor. 

“We have a subpoena which must be enforced and that does have the effect of law, so it’s even more effective than a vote on the floor,” Mr. Johnson tells the Sun of the Oversight Committee’s investigation as opposed to Mr. Massie’s binding resolution. 

The chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, has already subpoenaed several justice department officials, President Clinton, and others for testimony. Mr. Comer said after meeting with victims that lawmakers heard about others who may need to be brought in for questioning, though he declined to elaborate. 

“I think the petition itself is effectively a moot point now,” Mr. Johnson says. “What the House Oversight Committee is doing — what they are actually gathering — is everything that was requested in the discharge petition, plus even more.”

Mr. Johnson is now pushing his own resolution to the House floor that would simply confirm that the full House is supporting the Oversight Committee’s investigation, though the resolution has no requirements that all files be released at the close of the probe. 

Mr. Comer chimed in to note on Tuesday that he has also subpoenaed records from Epstein’s estate, which Mr. Massie’s discharge petition does not require. Mr. Comer says that all records from the estate would be made public. 

The speaker has made his frustrations with Mr. Massie well known in recent weeks. Before the August recess, he said that he did not know what Mr. Massie was thinking by pushing for this discharge release. On Tuesday, after Mr. Massie called Mr. Johnson’s resolution in support of the Oversight Committee “meaningless,” Mr. Johnson told reporters that he believed what Mr. Massie was doing with the Epstein files was also “meaningless.”

When asked by the Sun if he was committed to supporting Mr. Massie in his re-election campaign next year, Mr. Johnson said, “It’s up to him.”

Mr. Massie similarly could not hide his disdain for the speaker on Tuesday night. Speaking to reporters as the sun was setting, Mr. Massie argued that Mr. Johnson is engaged in a cover-up because the president wants him to keep the files under wraps. 

“Speaker Johnson is speaker as long as Donald Trump wants him to be speaker,” Mr. Massie told reporters on Tuesday night. “That’s actually his motivation for keeping this stuff covered up is [that] the president wants it covered up.”