Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday, House Democrats dropped a bombshell in the form of some e-mails from Jeffrey Epstein. In one, he wrote: "Of course he [Trump] knew about the girls." In another, Epstein noted that Trump once spent hours at his house with one of Epstein's victims, later identified as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year. In still another, Epstein remarked to Ghislaine Maxwell that it was amazing that no one had connected Trump to his sex-trafficking operation. That is likely about to change.
The timing couldn't be worse. Now that the shutdown news is going away, the media needs a new story to run with. Yesterday, Adelita Grijalva officially became the 218th House member to sign the discharge petition. The administration made a last-ditch effort to get one or more of the four Republicans who signed to unsign. It didn't work.
House rules require that discharge petitions "ripen" for 7 legislative days. Then the Speaker has to schedule a vote. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could maybe delay it to early December, but he has apparently decided to just rip the band-aid off. So, the vote is going to take place next week. All of the Democrats will vote for it, and so will Massie, of course. Presumably, the three Republican women who signed it (Lauren Boebert, CO; Nancy Mace, SC and Marjorie Taylor Greene, GA) will vote for it, too. That said, if any or all of that trio have second thoughts, it likely doesn't matter at this point. The moment that the 218th signature was applied, the petition was a done deal. Members can no longer remove their signatures. And, according to anonymous sources that talked to Politico, now that the die is cast, the dam is about to burst. "Dozens of Republicans," per that outlet's reporting, are expected to join the Democrats in voting "yea."
That said, don't get out your reading glasses yet. When the bill passes the House, as appears inevitable, then it will go to the Senate. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) doesn't have to schedule a vote if he doesn't want to (or Donald Trump orders him not to). If Thune does schedule a vote and it passes, then it goes to Trump for his signature. The chance of Trump's signing is approximately 0.00%.
Still, 6 months ago, it would have been hard to imagine the House voting on this measure, much less passing it by a large majority, as appears likely to happen. Donald Trump is a lame duck and, as last week's elections illustrated, electoral poison. It could be the senators do not want to make their lives even harder next year by taking a huge political hit, just to protect Trump's fee-fees. There may also be some Republican senators who would love to see Trump get what's coming to him (ahem, Mitch McConnell, R-KY). So, it's at least possible that there are eventually enough Republican senators to force the bill to be brought to the floor, to invoke cloture, and maybe even to override a presidential veto. It's not likely, but again, the vote that is going to happen in the House next week was not likely either, until it was.
Even if the Massie bill goes into the circular file, however, there could still be more revelations to come. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said that the e-mails released yesterday were part of a collection of 23,000 pages of documents they had received from the lawyers in charge of Epstein's estate. There could be more damning information in the collection, or in documents that are still held by the estate. There are also other people and entities out there that have at least some of them, including, apparently, Alan Dershowitz. And the pressure from voters, including MAGA, is going to be intense. So, this roller-coaster ride almost certainly has at least a few more turns ahead. (V & Z)