A House subcommittee on Wednesday, July 23, voted to subpoena the Department of Justice for files in the sex trafficking investigation into Jeffrey Epstein after Democrats successfully goaded GOP lawmakers to defy Trump and Republican leadership to support the action. Democrats on a subcommittee of the powerful House Committee on Oversight made a motion for the subpoena Wednesday afternoon, just hours before the House was scheduled to end its July work session and depart Washington for a monthlong break.
Three Republicans on the panel voted with Democrats for the subpoena, sending it through on an 8-2 vote tally. The Republican subcommittee chairman, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, said that work was beginning to draft the subpoena but that it would take some time for both sides to work out the final language.
"If the Republican Party, if our colleagues on this committee don't join us in this vote, then what they're essentially doing is joining President Donald Trump in complicity," Rep. Summer Lee, the Pennsylvania Democrat who made the motion for the subpoena, told reporters outside the hearing room.
Johnson told reporters earlier Wednesday there was no need to vote on legislation calling for the release of the Epstein files this week because the Trump administration is "already doing everything within their power to release them."
Yet Democrats have delighted this week in pressing Republicans to support the release of the files. Their efforts halted the GOP's legislative agenda for the week and turned attention to an issue that Trump has unsuccessfully implored his supporters to forget about.
"They're fleeing our work, our job and sending us back home because they don't want to vote to release these files. This is something that they ran on. This is something that they talked about: the importance of transparency, holding pedophiles accountable," Lee said.
Democratic leaders are hoping to make the issue about much more than just Epstein, who died in his New York jail cell six years ago while he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges.
"Why haven't Republicans released the Epstein files to the American people? It's reasonable to conclude that Republicans are continuing to protect the lifestyles of the rich and the shameless, even if that includes pedophiles," said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference. "So it's all connected."
It comes as both parties are gearing up to take their messaging to voters on Trump's big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill . For Republicans, it's "beautiful" legislation that will spark economic growth; for Democrats, it's an "ugly" gift mostly to the richest Americans that undermines health care for low-income people.
Yet as furor has grown on the right over the Trump administration's reversal on promises related to Epstein, several Democrats have seized on the opportunity to divide Republicans on the issue. Republican leaders accuse Democrats of caring about the issue purely for political gain. They point out that the Department of Justice held on to the Epstein investigation through the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump's Justice Department is also seeking the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the Epstein case, though that effort is unlikely to produce new revelations. The House Oversight Committee, with support from Republicans, also advanced Tuesday a subpoena for Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for a deposition.
Epstein was a friend to numerous high-profile people for years, including Trump. His 2019 prison cell death – ruled a suicide – supercharged a conspiracy theory long promoted by many of Trump's supporters that Epstein had run an international pedophile ring and that elites wanted to make sure he never revealed their secrets.
After Trump came to power for a second term this January, his administration promised to release Epstein case files. But when US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on July 7 that she had nothing to release, Republicans were furious – and Trump has been attempting to control the scandal ever since.
Things got even more complicated for him after the Wall Street Journal last week reported that Trump had written a lewd birthday letter to Epstein in 2003. Trump denies this and has sued the Journal for at least $10 billion. On Wednesday, the WSJ dropped a new story, saying Bondi had informed Trump in May that his name appeared several times in the Epstein files, even if there was no indication of wrongdoing.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called this "fake news" and said Trump had long ago broken with Epstein and "kicked him out of his club for being a creep."