https://x.com/i/status/1948211079001051267
The GOP chair was caught off guard and scrambled—first delaying the vote, then trying to sabotage it by adding amendments to include Biden administration communications. Democrats called their bluff and agreed.
Then the GOP chair, Rep. Higgins, lied, claiming the motion FAILED until Rep. Robert Garcia forced a full roll call vote.
Ultimately, the vote passed 8-2 after 3 Republicans DEFIED their leadership and joined all 5 Democrats to pass the motion.
They even fucking lied?
Then the GOP chair, Rep. Higgins, lied, claiming the motion FAILED
I’m not holding my breath but I’m really hoping that will help maga chuds clue in that the GOP are wholly dishonest.
I get what you’re saying, but there are now two very distinct news spheres, and the one that they’re watching will simply not cover this story.
It’s in the hands of r/conspiracy now…
They don’t care they just want to “win”.
Actually they just want to “own the libs”. They’ll all scream to have the Epstein files released if you hint that AOC might be in there.
I am puzzled by your incredulousness.
I am perplexed by your puzzlement.
This is unsurprising.
But forcing a recorded count does get those Republican Nays on record so they can be punished later.
the single person who voted no: “In the opinion of the chair the nos have it”
the multiple people who voted “yes” laugh at the absurdity and call him out on it
how fucking brazen a liar
Shouldn’t that be like contempt of congress or something?
maybe if laws/rules applied to Republicans in positions of power
Should be grounds to have his ass beat
I feel like this would be a great addition to congress. Make C-SPAN interactive and viewers can vote on whether or not to have someone involved in a proceeding flogged with something like a 90% majority.
It would be like the scene in The Simpsons (a really old episode) where the family goes in for group therapy and the counselor hooks them up with shock collars and buttons they can zap each other with, and they just go crazy shocking the shit out of each other.
Imagine the vote manipulation. Now you have to worry about getting a virus on your phone that will silenty vote to beat up a member of congress
The video was fun to watch to watch.
If my understanding is right, it just means this sub committee will now subpoena all documents. Not like it will be available to everybody, just available to the lawmakers. You must be a real pedophile-ophile to want to block your committee from having knowledge.
I think GOP wants to get rid of Trump but keep MAGA. They’ve simply been unable to manipulate that outcome until now.
deleted by creator
sooooo GOP chair who blatantly tried to defraud the American people in a cushy government position by abusing his position, he’s tossed outta the swamp now, right?
or rather, into the new swamp down in Florida
Can someone explain to this non-american why the Democrats are treating this as a successful upset when they could have released the Epstein files during Biden?
I don’t see anyone saying this yet, but the Epstein files were sealed by a court order for Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial. They weren’t unsealed until January of 2025. Biden couldn’t have released them without violating the court order that sealed them - and possibly giving Ghislaine’s lawyers a slam dunk to get her off with a mistrial.
Here is seems to be at the discretion of the Attorney General. Why didn’t Merrick Garland unseal them in September 2024 after her appeal failed?
Because Merrick Garland is incredibly lazy. He spent his entire tenure sitting around doing nothing.
This doesn’t get the Biden administration off the hook for not releasing the list sooner.
Unlike Trump, Biden respected court orders.
After Maxwell’s appeal failed in September 2024 no related court orders needed to be respected.
Garland is a republikkkan and a member of the Federalist Society. He was Biden’s greatest failure.
What exactly did you think that first link proved?
That the Attorney General can decide to declassify and publicly release the files.
Because they COULDN’T release them under Biden. They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
There is a lot of desperate “both sides” nonsense going on here but the fact remains, Democrats are voting to release them and Republicans are not. If Democrats wanted to cover them up, why would they be doing that?
Because they couldn’t, or at least not without potentially ruining the case while it was before the courts at the time?
Politik-brained Canadian here:
IIRC they didn’t raid Epstein till 2019. In 2020 Democrats had a narrow majority in the house which they would lose in 2022.
Than January 6, 2021 happened, and I think everyone thought that would be the legal case that brought Trump down.
It kind of seemed inevitable that the Epstein files would get leaked or released eventually. That is until Trump officially ran again in 2023; creating the possibility that the evidence would be destroyed permanently if he won.
just to tie on to this, theres a none zero chance some prominent democrat “old guard” are also on the list, and their positions are too valuable to be lost (to the status quo). january 6th, if it was enough, would have been a great way to protect the old guard and get rid of trump. but thats evidently not what happened.
i dont care whos on the list, from what side, i want them all punished. anybody whos complicit in the current shit show, or is on that list, needs to be shot in the street like a rabid dog.
While I was still on Reddit, there was a list going around of politicians charged with child sex offences. Sure, there were a few Dems, curse them to hell, but by FAR the majority were Republikkklans. The list was up to page 57 last time I sighted it.
We just need the files. I’m sure there’s gonna be plenty of “I was just on it because he was blackmailing me” or whatever, from everyone involved, innocent or not. Unless there’s something that literally has itemized “X person, 2 kids, diddled both, camera footage timestamp x:xx:xx” I really doubt much legally will come from it.
Court of public opinion however, that’s gonna cause some real shakedowns, if people actually listen.
maybe the video tapes that they took?
none zero chance
I wager the actual chances are in the double digits.
Triple digits?
Last I checked the chances had been reduced by 1000%
Shhh! Don’t ruin it for the rest of us! On tomorrow’s episode of “As The Empire Crumbles”, will the files lead to anything actionable?
The Attorney general under Biden, Merrick Garland, is a by the book liberal conservative. He assumed the treasonous actions of January 6 2021 would sink trump’s political career. He also believed - correctly- that the attorney general is appointed by a president to lead the judicial branch independent of the executive branch. Merrick focused the AG office on the January 6th investigation and didn’t publish the Epstein documents as they weren’t part of any specific case.
There is also the theory that high ranking establishment Democrats are on the Epstein list. We also know that there are many pictures of epstein’s clients with underage girls that haven’t been published. Likely because American legal culture always seeks to punish the women involved in sex work and views the “johns” as victims who need to be protected
It makes their opponents look bad when they refuse
They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
Or you know, mindless nonsensical conspiracy theories.
I was under the impression that the president was above the law
Biden likely would have never released it because his donors are on the list, also the general public on the US, if you haven’t caught on yet are like 30% complete idiots. A good example of this is that many people in comments on Instagram or other social media have said ‘‘why would anyone even willingly fly on a plane called ‘the Lolita express’?’’ Because they can’t figure out that the press started calling Epstine’s plane that long after the accusations and convictions were over with. They’re even more confused that the pilot of the plant never saw ANY sexual behavior or implied sexual relationship of any minors on the plane or even adults on the plane. How couldn’t he tell?! Because Epstine was a blackmail con man, not a ‘‘hay everybody here’s all my dirty secrets! Look at this! It’s incriminating!’’ Man. Blackmail necessitates obfuscation, and likewise gaining access to wealthy targets ment he ALSO needs to appear harmless and well connected to other wealthy people, who only saw normal behavior. So this list, the flight logs, even the island visitors, will all be at the very least 50% innocent people, if not way higher numbers. You only need a few successful targets to get by with blackmail and if the targets all have lots of money and know eachother the last thing you want is for them to be aware your blackmailing them all at once. And if he never did blackmail and just ran a pedophile ring, the level of secrecy would still be crazy high and he’d still want to look innocent to the majority of people he knew that’s how all child abusers and rapists in general tend to behave.
30% feels generously low.
I’d say the people making shit up and are unaware of the files being sealed are the ACTUAL idiots.
… ok.
Piss poor response. If you’re too immature to admit being wrong, that’s on you, don’t put it on us.
Wrong about what? I was simply saying that i think well over 30% of Americans are stupid. The fuck are you talking about?
Biden likely would have never released it because his donors are on the list
Biden wasn’t able to release it because a judge sealed it as part on an ongoing investigation. Don’t let that stop your ridiculous conspiracy theories.
The same “donors” would likely also support the Democrats now voting to release them.
I’m saying if he was still president, not in the past. also my whole point is that the list is half or more full of innocent names, but people at large won’t be able to grasp that, so it will paint otherwise innocent people as involved in a pedophile sex ring or trafficking, or as blackmail targets when they did none of those things.
Its a PR stunt. The democratic establishment doesn’t want them released. The democrats that do, are the minority faction of progressives, and they don’t have enough political power to actually get them released. Biden is not a progressive, he wants the uphold the status quo, including, protecting the Democrats on that list.
Its a PR stunt. The democratic establishment doesn’t want them released.
That makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Why would they overwhelmingly vote to realease them then?
It’s all performative. You vote for something you know has zero chance of passing so you can go “Look! Look! I’m good! I did the thing!” in the next election cycle even if what you really did is nothing.
See the 50+ votes to repeal Obamacare.
I’ll ask you this: Why didn’t the Biden Administration release it? Why did most congressional Democrats not demand the Biden Administration to release it? They had 4 years. Why demand its release now, now that they are out of power and they know that the current admin will never release it.
Because your feelings, right?
Who, me? look, all I’m saying is that the public at large can’t grasp that not everyone who walked past Epstein on the street is a full blow child sex trafficker. They will assume every single person he knew is full guilty when that’s just not how criminal conspiracy works, I wouldn’t be shocked to find only Him, Maxwell, Prince Andrew, and Trump were raping children.
Hey, where’s all those losers that kept saying the Dems didn’t actually want it released? Come on out of the woodwork, ya fucking losers.
They’re right here in this thread, ignoring reality and spewing conspiracy theories.
Hey, that’s my representative’s motion!
Nice!
Trust me bro one more rape charge on the rapist king and we beat fscist trust me bro. It will be a bombshell when everyone finds out what they already know and they SLAM him. One more scandal and we defeat facism trust me bro.
That’s what really kills me about this whole thing. Dude has never, ever, ever faced a consequence for all the shit he’s done. I’m done hoping, man.
Good. Finally. Balls and spines and strategies were grown and used.
This is terrible for decorum. Now the Republicans will start doing it!
Lmao
A House Oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena the Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
The motion passed by a vote of 8-2. Notably, three GOP lawmakers – Reps. Nancy Mace, Scott Perry and Brian Jack – joined with Democrats on the subcommittee to approve the subpoena, defying Republican leadership.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer must sign the subpoena before it can be officially issued, per committee rules. Comer plans to sign off on the subpoena, a Republican committee source told ABC News.
The top Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Summer Lee, initially offered the motion.
some people here dont know not to punch a gift horse in the mouth
3 Republicans: “I might be a racist, zionist(somehow), corrupt piece of shit that sits down when my fellow Americans are put into concentration camps, who is all for authoritarianism and white nationalism,… but I ain’t no pederass protector!”
a what, Walter?
Just bottom rung people looking down on the only people left categorically worse than them.
That’s why “chomos” need to be protected in jail.
That’s why wanna be Chris Hansen’s are usually as creepy as the creeps they catch.
That’s why violence posted online gets a free pass when its framed as a pedo getting btfu.
What does this actually mean?
Republicans are hypocrites — and have to be forced onto the record defying Dotard Trump — even though he’s a rapist and a pedophile.
I think they’re more curious what the effects of the vote will be.
That’s my point. It’s performative but also gets them on the record to expose the hypocrisy.
It’s performative? So it won’t actually cause the “subpoena ALL the Jeffrey Epstein files” as the post says? My point is it’s just a little hard to see what the vote actually does from the context given, although I don’t doubt there will be political fallout from it.
This is deeper than I care to expound upon but the simple version:
The democrats have been voted into a corner. They have almost enough power to be relevant but not nearly enough to prevent Republic卐n bullshit.
So, while they get blamed for every atrocity the conservatives force upon us, they have no other choice but to make the votes illuminate the right’s hypocrisy.
So, when they say they’re against something (Trump’s pedophilia in this case) and we all know that they’ll reverse course to please Dotard tomorrow, it’s nice to push the GQP into a corner and watch them have to choose the light.
So…what does this vote mean?
Yes, I’ve known that part for 35 years.
I’m not american, does this committee actually hold the power to release them or is this just a recommendation/symbolic? If rule of law is followed (I know big if) does this guarantee the release or are there still hurdles?
Me neither. It’s the house oversight committee. So it’s my understanding they do have some real power. Though to be honest I don’t know what the scope is.
