The Home of Representatives won’t transfer ahead with any legislative efforts aimed toward releasing recordsdata associated to infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein earlier than its monthlong August recess, Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) mentioned Monday.
“No,” Johnson responded when requested by CNN reporter Manu Raju if lawmakers would vote on a decision calling for the general public disclosure of paperwork associated to Epstein’s case earlier than the decrease chamber takes its annual summer season break.
The Home speaker argued that Congress wants to offer the Trump administration “space” to deal with the hot-button situation by itself in the meanwhile.
“There is no daylight between the House Republicans, the House and the president on maximum transparency,” Johnson mentioned. “[President Trump] has said that he wants all the credible files relating to Epstein to be released. He’s asked the attorney general to request the grand jury files of the court. All of that is in process right now.”
“My belief is we need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing.”
Johnson indicated that “if further congressional action is necessary or appropriate,” the Home “will look at that.”
“I don’t think we’re at that point right now, because we agree with the president,” he added.
Final week, the Republican-controlled Home Guidelines Committee voted to advance a nonbinding decision calling for the discharge of some data associated to the Epstein case.
The decision, which carries no authorized weight, directs Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi to publish “all credible” paperwork, communications and metadata associated to the federal authorities’s investigation of Epstein and his convicted sex-trafficking confederate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The decision cleared the foundations committee as a part of a cope with GOP lawmakers who initially opposed Trump’s rescissions invoice.
On the identical day the decision was accredited by the panel, Trump ordered Bondi to request that the grand jury transcripts within the Epstein case be unsealed.
Bondi requested the federal court docket within the Southern District of New York the next day to unseal the grand jury testimony associated to the 2019 federal intercourse trafficking case in opposition to Epstein and Maxwell.
