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A bipartisan congressional effort to force the Justice Department to release all its files on the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein got the final signature it needed to move forward. 

Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a Republican, and Ro Khanna of California, a Democrat, joined forces on a resolution to compel the disclosure of the estimated 100,000 files the department has on Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.

Now, the required number of House members have signed onto a procedural tool known as a discharge petition to force a vote on the measure on the House floor. The key signature came from the newest member of the House, Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who was sworn into the House on Wednesday, more than seven weeks after she won a special election for the seat held by her late father, former Rep. Raúl Grijalva. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson delayed swearing in Grijalva, citing the federal government shutdown, which lasted for 42 days, the longest shutdown in U.S. history, after congressional leaders reached an impasse on funding the government. Some Democrats accused Johnson of intentionally holding off on swearing in Grivalja to block the discharge petition from moving forward, which he denied. Two Epstein survivors, Jess Michaels and Liz Stein, were in the House gallery for Grijalva’s swearing-in.In her first speech on the House floor, Grijalva called the delay in her swearing-in “an abuse of power.” 

“One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress,” Grijalva said. “Our democracy only works when everyone has a voice. This includes the millions of people across the country who have experienced violence and exploitation.”

Also Wednesday, House Oversight Democrats released emails they had obtained showing more links between Epstein and President Donald Trump. In one 2011 email, Epstein described Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked” and said an unnamed victim “spent hours at my house” with him. In a December 2015 email exchange, the journalist Michael Wolff gave Epstein a heads-up that Trump would be asked by the media about their relationship. In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein indicated that Trump “asked me to resign, never a member ever” of Trump’s private Palm Beach club Mar-a-Lago and wrote: “of course he knew about the girls he asked ghislaine to stop.” Ghislaine is Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s co-conspirator.

Johnson dismissed the revelations as “another publicity stunt by the Democrats,” telling Punchbowl News on Wednesday that Democrats were “trying to mislead people.” Republicans on the Oversight Panel, in turn, released 20,000 documents they had obtained from Epstein’s estate. 

“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at her Wednesday press briefing: “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.” 

The public push to release more of the Epstein files has drawn support from across the political spectrum. It’s also caused discord within Trump’s base of supporters and frustrated Trump, who has repeatedly dismissed the matter as “a hoax.” Trump was friendly with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s but has said the two had a falling out before Epstein became a convicted sex offender in 2008. Trump’s has not been formally accused of any wrongdoing. 

Johnson has not put Massie and Khanna’s measure up for a vote on the House floor, citing the House Oversight Committee’s ongoing investigation into the matter. The White House has also aggressively lobbied against the effort, with officials reportedly calling it “a hostile act.” 

Every sitting House Democrat and three Republicans, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace, signed onto the Epstein files discharge petition, a mechanism by which lawmakers can circumvent House leadership to get measures to the House floor. White House officials have tried to pressure Boebert and Mace into removing their names from the discharge petition, even bringing Boebert in for a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday, Leavitt confirmed to The New York Times. 

Khanna told reporters Wednesday that he expects “40 to 50” House Republicans to vote for the measure when it receives a vote on the House floor, which he said would likely be in early December. If the resolution passes the U.S. House, it will go to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it would require a 60-vote supermajority to pass. 

Survivors of Epstein and Maxwell, who is serving out a 20-year federal prison sentence, have been speaking out publicly to put pressure on lawmakers. Over a dozen Epstein survivors, lawyers and advocates gathered at the Capitol in early September in a rally and a widely attended news conference, where they called for transparency and justice. 

The House Oversight Committee has released tens of thousands of documents it has obtained from the Justice Department as part of its investigation into Epstein. The public disclosures include a suggestive poem and drawing that Trump appears to have signed as part of a book of letters for Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump and the White House deny that he made the drawing. Trump has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the drawing’s existence, and its parent companies, Dow Jones and News Corp. 

Both Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel have faced intense questioning from Democrats on the Epstein matter in their recent appearances on Capitol Hill.  

Massie and Khanna are the latest duo joining forces across party lines to get around Johnson and House leadership. Earlier this year, Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, a Democrat, and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, a Republican, teamed up on a measure to allow new mothers in the House to designate another member to vote on their behalf.

Johnson and House leadership vigorously opposed the proxy voting push, leading Luna and Pettersen to turn to a discharge petition. Their petition also reached the required number of signatures to get a vote, and House members rebuked an effort by House leaders to quash it. But Luna eventually stood down on her effort as part of a deal with Johnson.