All 100 members of the U.S. Senate will soon be forced to go on the record on the question of whether or not the Trump administration should be forced to release the Epstein files. Senator Chuck Schumer, in a rare procedural motion on Wednesday, set up the vote as an amendment to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act. 

Democrats and a small band of Republicans have been pushing for weeks to force a disclosure of all Justice Department records related to the Epstein case. Speaker Johnson and the vast majority of GOP lawmakers have said that the House Oversight Committee’s own probe is sufficient, and that a forced disclosure of Justice Department files is unnecessary. 

On Wednesday, Mr. Schumer announced that he would force his colleagues to take a vote on a bill that would require Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the files within 30 days. The bill — written by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie and Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna — will be offered as an amendment to the annual defense authorization bill. It would take 60 votes to pass the amendment. 

“The bottom line is: the American people need to see this,” Mr. Schumer told reporters after filing his amendment. “Donald Trump has lied about this … There’s been so many lies, so much prevarication, so much cover-up.”

“The American people — Democrats, independents, Republicans — are demanding it be made public, and it should be. We hope Republicans will vote for it. They should,” the minority leader said. 

The majority leader, Senator John Thune, expects the chamber to pass the defense authorization bill before Congress goes on break for Rosh Hashanah at the end of next week. 

Mr. Schumer has started playing hardball with the GOP in recent months after his much-maligned decision to back a government funding bill in March. When he backed that measure, he won praise from President Trump but his own party rapidly turned on him. His favorability rating among fellow Democrats plunged in the aftermath. 

Now, Mr. Schumer is dragging out the confirmation process for every one of Mr. Trump’s executive and judicial nominees, he is demanding concessions as part of this month’s government funding fight, and now he is forcing his Republican colleagues to take a vote on the Epstein issue that so many of them are desperate to avoid talking about. 

The top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Ron Wyden, is also pushing for more disclosures about Epstein. According to the independent reporter Cam Stevenson at Below the Belt(way), Mr. Wyden will be introducing his own legislation to expand his investigation into Epstein’s associations, such as tech billionaire Peter Thiel and fashion scout Jen-Luc Brunel. 

“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes, and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement to the outlet. His legislation will reportedly be offered as an amendment to the NDAA. 

In the House, the Massie–Khanna bill is almost guaranteed to pass, so long as Mr. Johnson and Republican leadership do not move to change the chamber’s rules. 

Mr. Massie filed the bill under what is known as a “discharge petition,” a procedural mechanism that allows rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties to force votes on the floor if they can get 218 signatures — a majority of all House members — on the petition. Once that requisite number of signatures is reached, then the underlying bill must receive a vote within a matter of days. 

Mr. Massie has already garnered every Democratic vote, plus his own and three other Republicans. The petition currently has 216 signatories, though they are expected to reach the requisite 218 names by next month. On Tuesday night, Democrats won a special congressional race in northern Virginia, meaning they will have 217 signatures once that representative-elect is sworn in. 

A deep-blue district in southern Arizona will also hold a special election after the death of that district’s congressman earlier this year. Once Democrats fill that seat, which is widely expected, then Mr. Massie will have his 218 signatures, assuming no one removes their name. 

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