Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s brief misalignment with Donald Trump is over.
After supporting the full release of the Epstein files just a week ago, the Louisiana Republican on Tuesday threw a wrench in those efforts in the House and, in doing so, further cemented his reputation as one of President Trump’s most loyal fixers.
At a press conference, Johnson announced he was shutting the House down early for summer recess and canceling all floor votes scheduled for Thursday — a move, he claimed, that was intended to avoid “political games” stemming from a bipartisan push to pass a resolution calling for the public release of files related to financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The measure sparked a frenzy on the House floor late Monday that ended with the GOP going to recess to block a forced vote.
But by Tuesday morning, Johnson insisted there was really nothing to see here apart from a few rogue Republican lawmakers who “bite their own colleagues” and Democrats trying to capitalize on a perceived lack of transparency over the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case. Republicans, he said, were taking the high road by effectively walking away from the controversy.
Asked directly on Tuesday if anyone in Trump’s White House had asked him to delay voting on the Epstein resolution, Johnson offered a curious response.
“No,” he said. “But as you all know, I speak to the president multiple times a day on a typical day. Often. Always.”
The House Speaker’s shifting stance on the Epstein case has seemed to depend entirely on Trump’s rants. In an interview at the height of MAGA outrage over the Epstein case last week, the otherwise Trump-loyal Republican came out forcefully in favor of putting “everything out there” and letting the public draw their own conclusions. Attorney General Pam Bondi, he said at the time, should “explain” why she’d initially appeared to confirm the existence of an Epstein client list only to later deny it.
But his tune soon changed after Trump gave a dressing down to the GOP “weaklings” who had fallen for the Epstein “hoax.” Then Johnson appeared to get in full lockstep with Trump after The Wall Street Journal reported about a lewd birthday letter Trump purportedly sent to Epstein decades ago, pulling Trump back into the scandal he’d sought to convince his supporters was “nonsense.” (Trump denied writing the letter and has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit over the report.)
Johnson insisted on Tuesday that he’d heard the “president’s heart” and the two were now on the same page when it comes to the Epstein case — they both want “full transparency.” But “moral responsibility” to protect Epstein’s victims must come first, Johnson said, adding rather cryptically that also, “you have to allow the legislation to ripen.”
“We’re not going to play political games with this,” he said.
Around the same time Johnson made these remarks, Trump demanded from the Oval Office that reporters “stop talking about nonsense” and focus instead on how his Justice Department should go after Barack Obama for “treason.” The Trump administration has renewed its attacks on the president’s political foes in recent days and re-upped its grievances with what Trump has dubbed the “Russia hoax,” with intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard urging the Justice Department to investigate Obama officials in a move widely seen as a distraction from the Epstein controversy. Johnson got onboard with that on Monday, saying he wouldn’t hesitate to subpoena Obama to testify before Congress. That, too, will apparently have to wait until September.
Source link
