Finally, Democrats are fighting back: How Trump-Epstein and redistricting have ignited a revolt
Johnson had no other option because Democrats ground the chamber to a halt in an attempt to get their Republican colleagues to vote on files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) — joined by Trump-rebelling Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — had been gathering co-sponsors for their discharge petition that would allow them to circumvent leadership to release files related to the convicted sex offender and trafficker. But discharge petitions need seven legislative business days to 'ripen,' so cutting short the calendar delays the ripening.
It marked a turning point for a party that's been flailing since Donald Trump won last November. For the past few months, while Democrats have opposed Trump's initiatives, they have not landed a single clean punch politically. Rather, they've mostly stayed out of the way and hoped for his unforced errors, of which there have been several.
But that changed significantly this week. Democrats of all stripes in the House signed onto the discharge petition. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) represents a district that voted for Trump. But she signed onto Khanna and Massie's discharge petition and did not mince words.
'We deserve transparency and I'm pretty appalled to see parliamentary procedure used to hide pedophiles,' she told The Independent.
Democrats did get some substantial wins out of it, too. Not only did the House Oversight Committee vote to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and associate who is serving a 20-year sentence; three Republicans crossed over in one of the subcommittees to subpoena files related to the Epstein investigation.
And Democrats are not just gumming up the works on the House side. Earlier this week, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), told The Independent that he hoped that the Senate would not take up the Epstein files.
Unfortunately for his caucus, Democrats in the Senate decided to hijack the committee process there, too. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee convened for legislation Cornyn wanted to pass through the committee on opioids. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) attempted to include an amendment related to Epstein.
In the same token, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) tried to force a vote to disclose files related to Epstein, but Republicans blocked his efforts on the floor.
It should be stated that Booker and Gallego both likely want to run for president. During the August recess, Gallego will head to Iowa, which traditionally hosts the first presidential caucus. And ever since Booker's record-breaking sort-of filibuster, he has raised prodigious amounts of money and he likely sees this as a way to boost his profile even more.
But Democrats are not just drawing blood on Epstein.
Earlier this month, the Texas state legislature announced it would reconvene in the middle of the decade to redraw its congressional maps in an attempt to flip more seats and grow the GOP majority.
That seems to have set off something in Democrats. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said that Democrats should respond in kind by having California redraw their map. And it's not just liberal Newsom who supports this idea. Rep. Adam Gray, a freshman Democrat who narrowly flipped a seat Trump won, expressed openness to Newsom's proposal.
'I think what's important is that people all play by the same rules,' he told The Independent. 'And you know, I think it doesn't necessarily help either party to be toying around or trying to manipulate the rules, or change the rules, that seems to be what Texas is doing, which I think is a poor decision.'
California has a unique situation because it has an independent commission that draws congressional districts. Any effort to shore up Democrats in the Golden State would need to pass legal scrutiny or change that situation.
Unsurprisingly, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) put it more bluntly.
'The only way that you can deal with a bully is by socking them back, so it's time for us to sock them back,' Crockett told The Independent. 'Right now they decided to start a fight so that they could shit on the American people. The least that we could help is fight back so that we could help the American people.'
But perhaps the most audacious idea came from Gallego, who suggested that Democrats dilute districts that the Voting Rights Act protected to ensure equal representation of Black voters, as a way to make more districts where Democrats could win.
'I would tell you what I would know would happen the Republicans at any point should they ever take control of the registry commission in Arizona, what absolutely do anything, do to do to screw us,' he told The Independent. Therefore, he said that Democrats should not be afraid to use the same weapons against Republicans.
That might not go over well with some African-American voters, who are the most consistent voters in Democratic primaries.
At the same time, in a time when Democratic voters have demanded that theys see elected officials fight, they might be more unwilling to let go of old decorum rules.
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On the one-year anniversary of the Butler rally, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), now chair of the Homeland Security Committee, issued a scathing report accusing Cheatle of lying to Congress when she claimed under oath she had not denied requests for increased security for Trump. Cheatle, speaking through her attorney, denied the accusation in a rare public statement. 'Any assertion or implication that I provided misleading testimony is patently false and does a disservice to those men and women on the front lines who have been unfairly disciplined for a team, rather than individual, failure.' And it appears this may not be the last of it. House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer has said a criminal referral is still on the table. 'If stark evidence of an intentional effort to deceive arises... this Committee will respond,' an Oversight aide said. 'Whether or not Ms. Cheatle's testimony meets the legal definition of misleading Congress, it's clear she failed in her mission leading the agency and appropriately resigned.' According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in July, the Secret Service received classified warnings about a possible Iranian threat to Trump 10 days before the Butler rally but that intelligence that was never passed to agents securing the site. The report, commissioned by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), reinforced suspicions that Cheatle's office had treated Trump more like a former president than a current presidential candidate, despite clear evidence that he was a high-value target. Multiple Secret Service insiders said Cheatle's team had repeatedly denied Curran's requests for additional counter-sniper support and other heightened security assets during the 2024 campaign. Cheatle's fall is just one part of a much larger shake-up in the US intelligence world under Trump's second term. Within 24 hours of retaking office, the president signed an executive order revoking the clearances of dozens of former intelligence officials including the now-infamous '51 spies who lied' who had signed a 2020 letter dismissing the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story as 'Russian disinformation.' Among those stripped of access: John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, Michael Hayden, and John Bolton. In March, Trump went further, ordering the suspension of clearances for the Democratic-aligned law firm Perkins Coie, which was central to commissioning the now-discredited Steele dossier during the 2016 election. A federal judge has since blocked that order, but DOJ lawyers are appealing. National security attorney Sean Bigley said the revocations reflect a reform that is long-overdue. 'You have all of these former government bureaucrats, who are continuing to have access to the highest level of classified information... and then they can go and take that continued insider access and make themselves a hot commodity in the private sector or on the cable news circuit,' Bigley told RCP. 'That's not what security clearances are supposed to be used for – it's a fringe benefit that should be pulled.' Despite Cheatle's ousting, Trump has publicly taken a more tempered tone toward the Secret Service rank-and-file. 'They should have had communications with the local police... So there were mistakes made,' Trump said in an interview last month with Fox News. 'But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot... And I have great confidence in these people... They had a bad day. And I think they'll admit that.' Last month, the agency suffered another embarrassing episode when a Secret Service agent tried to sneak his wife onto an Air Force One flight during Trump's overseas trip to Scotland.
