The Epstein Petition Is Almost There: 216 Signatures and Counting

Photo: U.S. House of Representatives / Public domain

Two more signatures. That is the whole ballgame. The discharge petition that would force the House to vote on releasing the Epstein files is sitting at 216 signatures, and it needs 218. Two more. That is how close the most powerful people in the country are to being named, in public, in the files they have spent years trying to bury.

A discharge petition is a strange and wonderful tool. Most of the time, the Speaker of the House decides what the House votes on. If the Speaker does not want a vote, there is no vote. A discharge petition is the way around that. Get 218 members of the House, a majority, to sign it, and the bill goes to the floor whether the leadership likes it or not. It is the one lever the rank and file have against their own leaders. That is why it is so rarely used, and why it matters so much here.

Massie and Khanna are the reason this is happening. A Republican from Kentucky and a Democrat from California, and they agree on exactly one thing: the public has a right to see these files. They filed the petition. They have been collecting signatures in full view, and every name on it is a small act of courage, because the people who do not want these files released are the most powerful people in America.

So who is holding out? That is the question. Two hundred and sixteen members have signed. The holdouts are the ones who are afraid of what is in the files, or afraid of the people whose names are in them. Every member who has not signed is making a choice, and the choice is on the record. The public can see the list. That is the point of a petition. There is nowhere to hide.

Here is what happens the moment it hits 218. The petition forces a vote on the bill to release the files. Not a hearing. Not a committee markup. A vote, on the floor, in front of the cameras, and every member has to go on the record. That is what the people who have been protecting the files are terrified of. Not a report. A vote.

And the vote is going to pass. Everyone knows it. That is why the signatures matter so much. The petition is the door. The vote is the room on the other side. Once 218 members sign, there is no procedural trick left to stop it. The files come out. The names come out. The truth comes out, or at least the part of it that is written down.

Two more signatures. That is all that stands between the American people and the files. If your representative has not signed, you know what to do. Call them. Ask them why. The answer will tell you everything about whose side they are on. Because there are only two sides here. The people who want the truth. And the people who are hiding it.

WEAR YOUR VOICE.