SCOOP: Johnson closed House hours after Congress received Epstein’s financial records

Speaker Mike Johnson’s abrupt closure of the House may have more to do with stalling a congressional investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation than previously reported, and appears to have been a direct response to the Treasury’s surrender of Epstein’s financial records.

The decision to cancel all floor votes on the calendar and order House Republicans to leave Washington came only hours after the US House Oversight Committee announced it had received a first batch of documents from the US Treasury. The tranche included details regarding suspicious activity from Epstein’s bank accounts and a ledger detailing transactions between him and potential co-conspirators. Closing the House — and, by extension, shutting down the federal government — has ground the investigation to halt, and prevents the Treasury from delivering any more financial records.

US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), who sits on the Oversight Committee, believes Johnson shut down the House in order to protect those who are implicated by Epstein’s financial paper trail, and at the behest of President Donald Trump. And it wouldn’t be the first time, either: Johnson began this year’s summer recess weeks ahead of schedule in order to avoid a vote to release the Epstein files.

“I have just been so mind blown by the cover up that’s underway right now by the Trump White House over this. Mike Johnson — what’s most egregious to me is, he sat in the room with Epstein and Maxwell’s victims, and he said all sorts of things to them about how he empathizes and how he will be there for them and make sure there’s accountability,” Ansari said. “And then he also made sure to say, ‘let’s keep this investigation to the Oversight Committee. We shouldn’t talk about this in any other committee in Congress.’”

By sequestering the Epstein discussion to the Oversight Committee as Ansari described, Johnson hoped to leverage its investigation as a controlled opposition, allowing him to appear supportive while hiding it away, slowly suffocating the pursuit of justice under layers of bureaucracy.

The Treasury’s unexpected and speedy compliance with the investigation changed that. For nine months, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had denied requests for Epstein’s financial records from a separate investigation being conducted by the Senate Finance Committee, and was expected to give House investigators the same treatment. But in a puzzling about-face, Bessent agreed to cooperate with the House only a few weeks after he had refused the Senate’s latest request.

And once Bessent agreed to help, help came quickly. The Treasury announced it would deliver Epstein’s financial records to the House on September 13 and provided the first batch on September 19. That same morning, Johnson closed the House and exiled his Republican colleagues from the Capitol, even though the decision all but guaranteed the federal government would shut down as a result.

Johnson also refused to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who won a special election on September 23, and traveled to DC to be seated in Congress. While the two may not seem connected, Johnson’s decision to delay Grijalva’s swearing in appears to be another attempt to avoid voting on anything related to Epstein.

“This is also a matter of wanting to protect rich and powerful men who likely have appointments at the highest levels of our government,” Ansari said. “I have no doubt that the delay for Adelita Grijalva’s swearing-in is related. So much of what’s happened is related.”

Trump has ordered Republicans to not allow any votes that could provide transparency into Epstein’s sex trafficking. His administration has been very against releasing any information that could implicate anyone connected to Epstein — including Trump. The administration has even gone so far as to essentially exonerate Epstein, closing the investigation without pressing charges against his estate, and claiming that — while Epstein trafficked over a thousand victims, he had no clients.

A partial publication of the Treasury’s documents by Ansari and other Democrats on the Oversight Committee has confirmed Trump’s fears and disproved his administration’s claim: within the heavily redacted six pages are the names of billionaires Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Bill Gates.

Many members of Congress believe there is incriminating evidence implicating Epstein’s co-conspirators, and have introduced bills to force the full release of the DOJ’s Epstein Files. But due to Trump’s decree, those bills have been barred from being brought to the floor for a vote.

And that’s where Grijalva comes in.

Another member of the House Oversight Committee, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, has been working on releasing the Department of Justice’s Epstein Files through something called a discharge petition. A discharge petition is a way for members of the House to get around the Speaker and force a vote on a bill. But in order for a discharge petition to be valid, it needs a signature from 218 House Members. Massie’s petition has 217 signatures — 213 Democrats and four Republicans.

The other 215 Republicans in the House have refused to sign on, choosing instead to keep the contents of the Epstein Files hidden from the public. Once Grijalva is sworn in, Massie’s petition will have the final signature it needs in order to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.

But Johnson ignored Grijalva, adjourned the House, and said he would swear her in when they return on October 7. Then he extended the House recess until October 13, delaying Grijalva her seat for another week.

“Speaker Johnson should be ashamed of himself for not swearing in my new colleague from Arizona,” said Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL). “He should be ashamed of himself. And I believe, as many of us believe, that they didn’t swear her in because they don’t want the 218th vote for the Epstein files to open. They are not slick, and we are not stupid.”

This post first appeared in Below The Beltway, a COURIER Substack by Camaron Stevenson.

US President Donald Trump (2nd R) poses with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (L), Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (3rd L), House Speaker Mike Johnson (C), First Lady Melania Trump (R) and others. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)