Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former Speaker, castigated Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday for adjourning the House early to avoid holding a vote on the potential release of files on the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“For years, Epstein’s victims — many of them just children when they were abused — have waited for justice, often in silence and in pain. They deserve answers. They deserve dignity. And they deserve action from their government,” Pelosi said in a statement on the social platform X.
“That is why it is especially shameful that Speaker Johnson has shut down the House of Representatives for the summer to avoid a vote on this resolution,” she continued.
“To block transparency in this manner is not only an abdication of duty — it is a profound insult to the victims who have carried the burden of this trauma for decades,” Pelosi added. “The American people deserve to know the full extent of who was involved with Epstein and all of them must be held accountable — no matter how powerful.”
The House GOP whip’s office issued a notice Tuesday morning that the House would leave for August recess a day earlier than originally scheduled. The last votes of the week are now expected on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. local time, canceling planned votes for Thursday.
The shift comes as leadership’s plans for votes this week were upended by infighting on the House Rules Committee after Democrats tried to force votes on releasing more information on Epstein.
Johnson addressed the controversy at a press conference Tuesday, saying, “What we refuse to do is participate in another one of the Democrats’ political games. This is a serious matter. We are not going to let them use this as a political battering ram. The Rules Committee became the ground for them to do that.”
“But we’re done being lectured on transparency by the same party that orchestrated one of the most shameless, dangerous political cover-ups in the history of this country or any government on the face of planet Earth,” he added, referring to reporting about efforts to conceal from the public signs of former President Biden’s aging.
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