Despite a last minute push from President Donald Trump, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert kept her name on a discharge petition that would demand the full release of investigative files around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Boebert met with Trump Administration officials at the White House Wednesday over her support for using a process that goes around GOP leadership to force a vote on releasing the files.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt confirmed Boebert’s meeting at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, saying it was about transparency.
“Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress, whenever they please?” Leavitt told an ABC reporter who asked whether the administration was meeting with Boebert in order to push her to take her name off the petition. “Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?”
Boebert thanked the White House for the meeting, writing on social media later in the afternoon, “Together, we remain committed to ensuring transparency for the American people.” CPR News has reached out to her for additional comment.
Boebert is one of four Republicans who signed the bipartisan discharge petition led by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California to force the Justice Department to release all the files.
Boebert, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia all signed onto the petition on September 2. It remained one vote short until Wednesday afternoon when Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of New Mexico was sworn in and added her name.
Massie and Khanna sat together during the swearing in and stood up and clapped when it was announced she’d be the 218th signature. There were also two Epstein victims in the gallery watching.
Once a petition reaches 218 votes, it is frozen and no names can be added or removed.
Earlier in the day, Trump lashed out on social media at Republicans that supported the petition, writing Democrats are doing this to deflect from their failures.
“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” he wrote on Truth Social. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our country and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
Even with the required 218 signatures on the discharge petition, there will still be a lag before the bill can come to the floor for a vote.
It will take seven legislative days before it’s ready to be brought to the floor and then Speaker Mike Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. And it will still have to come to the floor under a rule, which gives Republican leaders some control over the bill.
If the bill gets to the House floor for a vote and passes, there’s no guarantee that the Senate would take it up and pass it there. But if it did, it would then have to be signed into law by Trump, who has referred to the effort as the “Epstein Hoax.”
