Trump's Epstein birthday card news rocks $9B PBS clawback vote in House: ‘I don't know anything'
The House had gone into overdrive to pass a bill that would claw back appropriated money for foreign aid and public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, that the president demanded from Congress.
The House passed the bill by a vote of 216-213. It now goes to Trump for his signature.
'We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,' said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
No Democrats supported the measure when it passed the Senate, 51-48, in the early morning hours Thursday. Final passage in the House was delayed for several hours as Republicans wrestled with their response to Democrats' push for a vote on the release of Jeffrey Epstein files.
But the news that Trump had reportedly sent a bawdy birthday card to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Epstein created another headache for Republicans, many of whom have pushed for the declassification of files related to Epstein's trafficking of underage girls.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he did not know anything about the potential communication between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. (Getty Images)
'I don't know anything about it,' House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told The Independent as he headed onto the floor before the vote.
Trump vehemently denied the story, saying on Truth Social that he would sue The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorps, and Rupert Murdoch 'shortly.' In addition, Trump said that he would instruct Attorney General Pam Bondi to release certain files related to Epstein and grand jury testimony 'subject to court approval.'
Prior to the vote on the floor, the House Rules Committee held a markup to prepare the legislation for final passage. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) asked for The Wall Street Journal report to be added to the record of the markup.
However, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), a member of the hardline Freedom Caucus, pushed back.
'The president is saying it's artificial intelligence,' he said. 'That will be proven in due time.'
The news is just the latest wrinkle in the saga surrounding Republican fixation about Epstein's trafficking and death in custody. Earlier this month, the Justice Department released a two-page memo saying that Epstein had no 'client list' and that he died by suicide. This came despite the fact that Bondi had pledged on Fox News that she had files related to Epstein 'sitting on my desk right now to review.'
The Republican majority on the committee voted down an amendment by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), the top Democrat on Rules, to declassify memos related to Epstein. Instead, the committee's Republicans passed a non-binding resolution calling on the Department of Justice to release information related to Epstein.
McGovern dismissed the efforts as 'such a pathetic attempt at ass-covering.'
'I mean, they don't even have a date to bring it up,' he told The Independent. 'They're gonna find out that voters are paying attention, and they're not easily bulls***ted.'
When asked why Republicans voted down the amendment in committee, Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) pushed back.
'Because we had our own,' she told The Independent. 'We had our own need... we didn't need that.'
When asked about The Wall Street Journal's report, Foxx remained silent. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who represents a district Kamala Harris won, was initially silent and threw up a hand when The Independent asked him about the story, and then said 'no' when asked again.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), another member of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, said he did not know if House leadership would put the bill up to a vote.
'Go talk to those guys,' he told The Independent. When asked about why the House GOP voted against the amendment in committee about Epstein, Roy said, 'Because we had a resolution.'
Other Republicans attempted to strike a balance. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), who leads a task force that focuses on declassification of federal secrets, referred to a tweet where she drew a stick figure and said, 'I hope you guys don't show this to The Wall Street Journal. They might think I'm a sex trafficker.'
'I think that President Trump announced that he's going to be suing The Wall Street Journal because it was not his artwork,' she told The Independent. She also said she trusted Bondi.
Ahead of the recissions Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) attempted to force a vote on his amendment to disclose information on Epstein, but Republicans blocked the effort.
'Isn't it striking that they aren't even putting that for a vote,' Khanna told The Independent about the non-binding resolution put forth by Republicans. 'I would have thought at least put that for a vote, but they're so afraid of offending the president.'
Republicans might not be able to avoid voting on Epstein matters. Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a sharp critic of Trump, co-sponsored a discharge petition. If a majority of members sign a discharge petition, it can go to the floor for a vote without going through the committee process.
So far, conservative members like Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Tim Burchett (R-TN) all support it. Earlier in the day, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said he would also sign onto it.
'The stakes are high, but I'm betting, 'yes,'' Raskin told The Independent.
But a discharge petition must ripen for seven legislative days before it goes to the floor. Khanna accused House Republican leadership of bolting early to lengthen amount of time for the petition to 'ripen.'
'They're trying to avoid that and then they're hoping that the momentum is lost during the August recess, but this issue is not going away,' he said.
After the vote, Johnson, the pious Christian conservative who once said he and his son monitor use an app to monitor whether the other watched pornography, spoke to reporters in a gaggle.
He received only a few questions about the recissions package, while almost every other reporter asked him about Trump and Epstein.
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