The United States House of Representatives will hold a vote to force the full disclosure of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Speaker Mike Johnson has said.
Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that the House would hold a vote next week to require the Department of Justice to release all documents related to the disgraced financier.
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Johnson added that he wanted to “remind everybody” that the GOP-led Oversight Committee had been “working around the clock” on its own investigation into the case.
Johnson made the comments after Democratic lawmaker Adelita Grijalva, who was sworn in as the newest member of Congress on Wednesday, signed a petition to compel a House vote on the issue.
The bipartisan discharge petition – a mechanism allowing a majority of lawmakers to bypass the House leadership – was put forward by Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and California Democrat Ro Khanna.
Grijalva won a special election to fill the Arizona seat held by her late father, Raul Grijalva, in September.
Johnson had refused to swear in the lawmaker as the chamber has been out of session since September 19, prompting a lawsuit by Arizona’s attorney general.
Grijalva and other Democrats said the delay was intended to prevent her from adding her signature to the Epstein petition.
Speaker Johnson is delaying my swearing in to avoid releasing the Epstein files.
Join us in demanding Speaker Johnson:
End the Shutdown.
Swear me In.
Release the Files.
SIGN OUR PETITION 🔗https://t.co/pmOaiFxQu6 pic.twitter.com/l2xzrVz1qI
— Adelita Grijalva (@AdelitaForAZ) October 9, 2025
Immediately after being sworn in, Grijalva signed the petition, giving it the required 218 signatures to progress.
Her co-signatories included all 214 House Democrats and four House Republicans – Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace.
Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, with 219 members.
In a speech on the House floor after taking her seat, Grijalva promised to continue her father’s legacy of advocating for progressive policies and ensure Congress provided a “full and check and balance” to President Donald Trump’s administration.
“We can and must do better. What is most concerning is not what this administration has done, but what the majority of this body has failed to do,” she said.
Grijalva’s second act in a busy first day on Capitol Hill was to vote with the majority of her Democratic colleagues to reject the Senate-passed legislation to reopen the government.
Lawmakers voted 222 to 209 in favour of moving the funding package to Trump’s desk for his signature, ending the longest federal government shutdown in history.
Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, had previously said he expected voting on the Epstein bill to take place in early December.
Johnson’s announcement of an earlier-than-expected vote hinted at growing frustration among Republican lawmakers, many of whom are facing growing scrutiny from within their own party, Democratic lawmakers and the American public over accusations they are protecting child abusers.
Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett told reporters on Wednesday that he was “tired of messing around” with the issue.
“The Democrats have had the Epstein files for four years, and now we’ve got it for nine months, and it’s going to be dragged into a bunch of nonsense. Let’s just take it to the floor. Let’s vote on it. Let’s get on with it,” he said.
A push on Wednesday by Burchett to force an expedited vote to release the files was blocked for not following proper legislative procedure.
In a video on X, Burchett blamed Democrats for blocking his efforts and accused them of “gamesmanship” over Epstein.
I tried to release the Epstein files today. Democrats blocked it. pic.twitter.com/oKo8y9RR3b
— Rep. Tim Burchett Press Office (@RepTimBurchett) November 12, 2025
The vote also comes amid renewed scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with Epstein, after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released new emails appearing to further link the pair on Wednesday.
In one such communication, Epstein told his former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence for sex trafficking, that Trump had “spent hours” at his house with one victim.
The email, reportedly sent to Maxwell two years after Epstein had spent 13 months in prison for his sex crimes, also said, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.”
It was unclear what Epstein was referring to with his comments.
Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls” in another email sent in 2019.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump dismissed the emails as a “hoax”, accusing Democrats of being willing to “do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown”.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also dismissed the emails, saying they “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong”.
“This administration has done more with respect to transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein than any administration ever,” she said.
