Dispute over Jeffrey Epstein's files leads US House Republicans to bring forward their recess.
US lawmakers want the Department of Justice and the FBI to release all government documents on the financier and sex offender.
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said he would send lawmakers home a day early for a five-week summer recess to avoid a political battle over the files of financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The move defuses pressure from Democrats and some Republicans to vote on a bipartisan resolution demanding that the Justice Department and the FBI release all government documents on Epstein, who committed suicide in prison in 2019.
"What we refuse to do is participate in another one of the Democrats' political games. This is a serious matter. We will not allow them to use this as a political battering ram," Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters.
Many of President Donald Trump's supporters, who embraced a series of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein, saw their hopes rise when the government promised to release a series of new documents about the case, only to backtrack and say that it had concluded there was no evidence to support the theories.
The conclusion opened a rare rift between Trump and part of his Make America Great Again support base. Most Americans and Trump Republicans say they believe the government is hiding details about the case, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
On Monday, Democrats tried to use a meeting of the House Rules Committee to force a vote on the Epstein resolution introduced by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna.
The panel acts as a guardian of legislation that goes to the full Senate. Instead, Republicans suspended the hearing, preventing the panel from approving bills for full Senate consideration this week.
The expectation was that the House would hold the final votes of the week on Thursday. But House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the second-largest Republican in the House, told reporters that there would be votes on Tuesday and Wednesday on less important proposals.
