CNN reports:

Top congressional Republicans and White House allies are working behind the scenes to prevent a politically charged floor vote to release the government’s Jeffrey Epstein case files next month, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions.

The intensifying effort to halt that floor vote comes as Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, declared on Wednesday they have the 218 votes needed to compel one when Congress returns. That final signature on their petition to force the vote will come from Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election in Arizona Tuesday night, once she is formally sworn in.

Discharge petitions historically have a bad track record of actually forcing a vote, mostly because lawmakers in the majority are wary of taking a stand against leadership. The Epstein issue, however, has animated some Republican members, with Trump allies on Capitol Hill like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina signing onto the petition.

While the exact strategy to avoid a vote is not yet clear, some of the GOP lawmakers who have signed on are privately being pressured to withdraw their name from the petition, which would prevent a vote from taking place, one of those sources said.

Boebert told CNN last week that she would not be removing her name from the petition, noting at the time that she was not getting pressured to do so. [Continue reading…]