Dem
47
GOP
53
There is an obscure federal law that says if any five members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee want to see documents within the purview of the Committee, the Executive Branch must provide them. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said yesterday that he will invoke the law to get the Epstein files. The House Committee on Government Operations also has that power, although there it takes seven members.
If the committees get the files, they could release them. Our estimate of the probability of getting unredacted files is roughly zero. Donald Trump could get out his trusty sharpie and black out every word in every document before handing them over. Alternatively, he could go to the Supreme Court to get the law declared unconstitutional on the grounds that he doesn't like it.
But this stunt may not result in a stalemate. The public wants to see the files. If the news story in the next few days is that the Democrats are demanding the files so they can release them and Trump is blocking this, Democrats are going to be screaming: "What is he hiding? Use your imagination." The net result of all this could be that the public comes to view the Democrats as the ones trying very hard to release the files and the Republicans being the ones blocking it. That could affect the midterms if enough Republican voters get so angry with the Republicans that they stay home on Election Day. (V)