Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting the worst Donald Trump defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him—no matter how disgraceful or lawless his actions.
Republicans proved again this week that they’ll go to the ends of the earth to defend President Donald Trump—no matter how disturbing his actions may be.
After a discharge petition finally reached the number of signatures needed to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files, GOP lawmakers desperately covered for Dear Leader.
“I think this is a massive distraction by the Democrats,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, who kept the House out of session in an effort to block the vote, said Wednesday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson
Johnson also dismissed the horrific emails released Wednesday, in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Trump knew about the girls he trafficked and even spent time with one of the victims at Epstein’s home.
“Another publicity stunt by the Democrats. They’re trying to mislead people,” Johnson told Punchbowl News reporter Max Cohen.
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee also dismissed the emails, telling Bloomberg TV that they were merely “little pieces” that were taken “out of context.”
“The Democrats have had this thing for four years, and let’s be honest, if there was something in there detrimental to President Trump, Joe Biden would have released it,” he said. “He’s the anti-Christ to the Democrats. They want to bury him as soon as they could.”
Similarly, Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas pulled the GOP’s favorite excuse: pretending he didn’t see the emails.
“I’ve not gone through all of the documents, he told CNN.
Other Republicans complained about the timing of the emails’ release, rather than addressing the actual—and very damning—contents.
“As a survivor I find it deeply offensive that DEMOCRATS would use Epstein victims to bury headlines about the vote to reopen the government today. Today of all days,” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina wrote on X. “WTH is wrong with you people. You just keep reminding women and survivors you don’t support us.”
Of course, Democrats released the emails Wednesday because it was the day the discharge petition was set to gain a majority of signatures after Johnson delayed swearing in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, who was the final signature needed.
A cartoon by Mike Luckovich.
But Republicans still have no good answer for why Trump won’t release the files if there’s nothing in them that’s damaging to him or his allies.
In fact, he’s so scared of the Epstein files getting out that he summoned Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to the White House in an attempt to convince her to remove her name from the petition. Boebert was one of a handful of GOP lawmakers who joined Democrats in signing it.
And Trump is pissed about it.
“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,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap. The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price. There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
But despite his best efforts, Trump couldn’t stop the vote, which Johnson says will happen this week.
It remains to be seen if the Senate will vote on the measure. And even if it does pass, it’s unlikely that Trump would sign it.
Which again begs the question: What is Trump hiding?
