Even if bill passes the House, it will still need to get through the Senate before files can be released
Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, said on Wednesday he would put the bill compelling the release of government files related to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on the House floor next week.
“We are gonna put that on the floor for [a] full vote next week, [as] soon as we get back,” Johnson told reporters, as the chamber gathered to debate legislation to reopen the government.
Johnson, who opposes the bill, made the announcement just hours after swearing in Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who took her oath of office seven weeks after she won a late September special election to succeed her father, the longtime representative Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.
Grijalva’s swearing-in cleared the path for the vote to release the Epstein files, as she became the 218th and final signature on a discharge petition that automatically triggers a House floor vote on legislation demanding the justice department release the files. In her floor remarks on Wednesday, Grijalva said:
