alt Hacker NewsThe discharge petition to all the bill that forced this release was going nowhere until President Trump declared that he was onboard, and then it happened. Until then it was going nowhere.
My guess is that someone suggested to Trump that they could redact most of the bad bits and plausibly deny that they were doing that, and he decided that this was the path of least resistance.
So I don't think there is any chance that he will easily allow any more votes to go the way of putting more pressure. Unless the pressure gets so bad that he has no choice (read: Newsmax and FoxNews both start pressure campaigns).
This is not correct at all.
The GOP are masters of using parliamentary procedure to avoid votes that would pass that they don't want to pass, nominations and bills that they can't defend voting against.
This was a big issue in the Obama era where Mitch McConnell was determined to make Obama a one term president and decided to "obstruct, obstruct, obstruct" on things that historically never been obstructed, or at least not to the degree they were under Obama. For example, judicial appointments would get stuck in committee and never come up for a vote because the vote would pass. The most famous example of this was the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination that was never given a vote for 11 months, which was completely unprecedented.
The GOP has a narrow working majority in the House. The House, unlike the Senate, has the discharge petition process where if a majority of House representatives sign it, it forces a vote. All the Democratic reps signed on so it only took about 4 GOP reps for it to pass.
The lengths Mike Johnson went to to avoid this were unprecedented. 3 Democratic reps have died in office this Congressional session. Texas has consistently delayed a special election to avoid a replacement. Arizona had a special election. A Democrat won and Johnson avoided swearing her in for 7 weeks because she would be the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition.
4 GOP reps signed on and the White House and the Speaker both put incredible pressure on them to change their mind. It was a big part of why Trump fell out with Marjorie Taylor-Greene (she was one of the 4).
Why go to all this effort? Because Epstein was core foundational mythology for MAGA, reps couldn't defend voting against it and everybody knew it.
Johnson then tried to use a procedure to pass a vote called unaminous consent. Basically, rather than go through a roll call of up to 435 members, the House is given the option to object. If anyone does, it forces a vote. Why would he do this? Because there's no voting record for unanimous consent. It gives members cover to say they did or didn't vote for something. A roll call is an official record. Democrats objected and thus we got an official vote with only 1 "no" vote (Rep Clay Higgins).
The SEnate passed it with unanimous consent.
This was a veto proof majority. So if it was so popular, why just not schedule a vote to begin with?
And the obstruction continues. Johnson again put the House in recess 1 day before the 30 day deadline. Coincidence? I think not.
And now we're getting illegal redactions, not meeting the 30 day deadline and a drip feed of document releases because (IMHO) they can't find enough ethically-challenged lackeys to do doc review and redact the names and images of Trump and powerful people, many of whom are likely donors.
Johnson may well lose his position over this. The Attorney General has a non-zero chance of being impeached and removed over it.
There is no putting this genie back in the bottle. It's not going away and at no point was the Trump circle comfortable they could redact their way out of it. They are in full on panic mode right now.