Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the once steadfast ally of Donald Trump who has since fallen out with the president, said the saga around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has “ripped MAGA apart.”
Greene made her comments while flanked by some of Epstein’s victims outside the Capitol on Tuesday, just hours before the House is set to vote on a bill that would force the Justice Department to release Epstein case files.
The White House led an aggressive campaign to pare back Republican support for the effort, but Trump ultimately gave a nod of approval for the measure after Greene and three other Republicans joined Democrats to force it to the House floor.
Trump, however, has angrily withdrawn his support for Greene — an early supporter of Trump and his Make America Great Again movement — and called her Marjorie “Traitor” Greene.
“This has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA — is watching the man that we supported early on, three elections,” oppose the bill, she told reporters. “Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart.”
The back-and-forth battle over releasing the files has certainly driven some Republicans into contortions — not least of whom is Speaker Mike Johnson.
He told reporters Tuesday that he plans to vote for the bill authored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) even as he stood by his longtime claim that it’s “recklessly flawed” because it does not sufficiently protect victims and whistleblowers in his view. He told GOP members in a private conference meeting earlier that morning to vote their “conscience,” according to four people in the room granted anonymity to describe the private meeting.
“I think it could be a near-unanimous vote,” Johnson said.
Tuesday’s vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act is the culmination of a monthslong bipartisan effort. Speaking at the news conference, Massie accused Trump of “trying to protect friends and donors” by opposing the legislation for so long. The victims, meanwhile, shared none of Johnson’s concerns that its passage would threaten their well-being.
Other members of GOP leadership are also signaling they will vote for the bill. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirmed his vote in a brief interview Tuesday morning, and Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the GOP conference chair, issued a statement saying she would also support it.
Both Johnson and Scalise have suggested the Senate might revise the bill later, but there is likely to be little appetite in the other chamber for prolonged consideration of a measure that most Republicans want to put quickly behind them.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t expected to announce what the Senate will do until after the House passes the bill, but there’s growing support among Senate Republicans to pass the resolution in the wake of Trump’s shift — potentially by unanimous consent this week.
Johnson and Massie continued to snipe at each other, meanwhile, with the speaker saying Tuesday he got the “middle finger” from the bill sponsors when GOP leaders asked to make revisions, while Massie said in an interview Monday that Johnson’s “concerns were never warranted.”
“If he actually wanted the Epstein files released, he could have offered his suggestions four months ago and brought it to the floor,” Massie said. “Instead he … spread lies about our legislation he now supports because the president told him to.”
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
