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.
It has been a week of transparent attempts at misdirection by GOP lawmakers, who are trying to appease Dear Leader Donald Trump by heeding his demand to distract the public from the Epstein files—a scandal his own administration created when they said the government doesn’t possess any files from the disgraced sex predator that incriminate powerful third parties.
GOP leaders in the House have gone to great lengths to block the release of the Epstein files, which Trump’s name appears in as Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were close friends for many years.
Other Republican lawmakers took Trump’s direction and are calling for former President Barack Obama to be investigated, after Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made up a bullshit accusation that Obama committed “treason” in the 2016 election when it was said Russia meddled in that contest.
Other rank-and-file Republicans even came to Trump’s defense, saying that the Epstein files are no big deal and the public should simply move on. This is particularly curious as Trump’s own MAGA influencers had built the files up for years as a ticking time bomb that would take down the elites who palled around with Epstein.
Let’s take a look at this week’s cowards, shall we?
First there’s House Speaker Mike Johnson, who sought to beat back bipartisan legislation that would compel the Trump administration to release the Epstein files by crafting his own toothless resolution. That bill says the Trump administration should release the Epstein files, but would carry no legal weight to actually compel the documents into public view.
But Johnson then refused to put that legislation up for a vote, saying he would wait until after the House returned from a five-week-long August recess to allow the Trump administration time to interview convicted Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell to see if she had any incriminating evidence to share. (Of course, Maxwell has a lot to gain by telling Trump what he wants to hear, as she is serving 20 years in federal prison and could be released if Trump pardoned her or commuted her sentence.)
Some Republicans defended that ridiculous legislation, with Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) writing in a post on X: “A bill passed by the House is not ‘binding’ if it has zero chance of being signed by the President even if passed by both houses. Meanwhile—a strong Congressional statement of transparency asked of an administration similarly seeking transparency is what Americans seek.”
But then, when Johnson got wind that Democrats would force Republicans on the Rules Committee—a powerful committee that tees up bills for votes on the House floor—to vote on Epstein-related amendments, he shut down the House and sent members home early.
“No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents,” Johnson said at a news conference on Capitol Hill, even though he was absolutely running defense to ensure Trump wouldn’t have to release the files. “No one in Congress is doing that. What we are doing here, Republicans, are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the rules committee process because we refuse to engage in their political charade.”
Other GOP leaders also tried to deflect criticism for Trump not releasing the documents.
“At the end of the day, look, Democrats are yelling and screaming,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise whined to Politico. “They spent four years covering up for Epstein, and you know, at least President Trump’s in the courts right now trying to get documents released, and I really think you’re gonna see, hopefully, a lot unsealed from that and then we’ve got some other options.”
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer went a step further, calling the Epstein scandal a “non-issue,” even though polling shows Americans think Trump is hiding something by not releasing the documents.
Then, there are the other GOP lawmakers who said everyone needs to just move on.
“We got a lot more important things to do for the American people than what happened eight, ten, twenty years ago… we need to move on,” Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez said.
But Gimenez went on to say just seconds later in the same interview that the government needs to look into former President Barack Obama’s role in the government’s probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Trump had encouraged Republicans this week to push this new fake conspiracy that his administration cooked up to distract from the Epstein files scandal.
“We need to look at exactly what happened back in 2016,” Gimenez said, without realizing the irony of his statement.
Other GOP lawmakers also pushed the fake scandal.
“I also completely agree with President Trump, the major story should be what Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said in a television appearance, after playing dumb about the Epstein files.
And Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special counsel to look into Obama’s role in the Russia probe. Of course, there already was a special counsel named John Durham, whose probe found nothing about Obama—or anyone really.
Ultimately, Republicans are a bunch of cowards who will go to great lengths not only to appease Trump, but in this case to also protect a pedophile like Epstein.
Shameful.