Trump ramps up pressure on GOP to thwart Epstein vote

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his administration on Nov 12 ramped up a pressure campaign on congressional Republicans who are pushing for a full release of the Justice Department’s files about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, rushing to head off a House vote on the matter.

But even as the White House made last-ditch moves to block action, proponents of a vote reached a critical threshold to force one, winning the final signature on a petition that will require the House to bring up the matter in the coming days.

By the night of Nov 12, House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has opposed considering the measure, said he would relent and bring it to a vote next week.

It came the same day that top officials had summoned Representative Lauren Boebert (Republican - Colorado), who has signed the petition, to a meeting in the White House Situation Room with Attorney-General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel to discuss her demand to release the files, according to two people familiar with the matter.

They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment on the private discussions.

Ms Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, confirmed that the meeting had taken place, calling it an example of “transparency” and how administration officials “are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns”.

Ms Boebert is one of three Republican women in the House who have signed on to the petition, which calls for a vote on a resolution demanding that the Justice Department within 30 days release all of its investigative files on Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019.

Later in the day, Representative Adelita Grijalva (Democrat - Arizona), whom Republicans had avoided swearing in for nearly two months, was finally allowed to take her oath and immediately provided the final signature needed to force action on the Epstein measure.

Even if the resolution were to pass the Republican-led House, it would almost certainly be dead on arrival in the Senate, and Mr Trump would surely veto it.

But a vote on the matter could be a political disaster for him and many Republicans, who have been torn between their loyalty to Mr Trump and the clamouring by their constituents for more transparency about Epstein. The president has lobbied intensively behind the scenes to prevent such a vote.

Mr Trump called Ms Boebert on the phone early on the morning of Nov 11, according to two people familiar with the call, a day before Mr Johnson was set to swear in Ms Grijalva, who had pledged to provide the 218th signature needed to force the Epstein vote.

Mr Trump reached out by phone to Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, another of the Republicans who have signed the petition, according to a person familiar with the calls, but the two did not connect.

Instead, Ms Mace, who is running for governor, wrote Mr Trump a long explanation of her own history of sexual abuse and rape, and why it was impossible for her to change positions, according to a person familiar with her actions. On social media, she wrote that “the Epstein petition is deeply personal”.

On social media, Ms Boebert thanked White House officials for meeting with her and wrote that “together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people”. But she did not remove her name from the petition.

For months, Ms Boebert has been the target of an unrelenting pressure campaign from the White House to remove her name.

White House officials have asked her and her staff members what it would take for her to change positions. When that did not work, they issued vague threats, reminding her of the risks of crossing Mr Trump in her district, where he remained popular.

But the hardball tactics did not have their desired effect. Instead, people familiar with Ms Boebert’s thinking said, it caused Ms Boebert to dig in and more seriously entertain the possibility of a real conspiracy at play to cover up what is in the Epstein files.

Mr Trump’s allies in Congress have also sought to thwart a vote on releasing the material, in part by opening their own investigation in the House Oversight Committee into Epstein.

They have argued that no legislation is needed to force the administration to cooperate since they are already looking into the matter. But that strategy, too, has failed to quiet the calls for greater transparency.

The flurry of lobbying from the White House came as Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three e-mails in which the disgraced financier suggested that Mr Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuse than he has acknowledged.

But Republicans on the oversight panel quickly sought to discredit the messages, releasing tens of thousands of other pages of documents in which they were contained in an apparent bid to downplay and shift attention away from them.

In a social media post, Mr Trump claimed the renewed focus on what he called the “Epstein Hoax” was a tactic by Democrats to deflect blame for causing the government shutdown.

“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” Mr Trump wrote.

White House officials have sought to enlist Ms Bondi and Mr Patel in the lobbying effort directed at getting Ms Boebert to remove her name from the discharge petition, according to people familiar with the matter.

A spokesperson for Ms Bondi declined to comment, or to say whether Ms Bondi attended a meeting on the morning of Nov 12 at the White House with Ms Boebert. A White House official also declined to comment.

Mr Patel was at the White House on Nov 12, where he spoke to reporters about the administration’s efforts to fight fentanyl.

Ms Leavitt said she would not comment on conversations held in the Situation Room, normally a space reserved for handling high-level crises and military operations.

Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky are the two other Republicans who have signed the discharge petition.

As of this week, none of the four Republicans had indicated that they were wavering on the Epstein petition. At home in their districts for over a month, people who spoke to them had said, they repeatedly heard from constituents thanking them for signing their names and pleading with them to hold the line.

With Ms Grijalva’s signature on Nov 12, the document reached the threshold to bring the Epstein resolution to the floor, freezing the petition in place and closing off the possibility that any lawmaker could remove his or her name.

It also started the clock on a waiting period of seven legislative days – days when the House is in session and working – before a member can bring up the resolution, at which point the leadership would have up to two more days before it would have to call a vote on it.

That would have put the action on track for early December, after the House takes a break for Thanksgiving. But Mr Johnson told reporters at the Capitol on the night of Nov 12 that he would not wait that long, and instead would call it up next week. NYTIMES