“We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on social media late Sunday after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.

Trump’s statement followed a fierce fight within the GOP over the files, including an increasingly nasty split with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had long been one of his fiercest supporters.

The president’s shift is an implicit acknowledgement that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate.

It is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within the GOP. In his return to office and in his second term as president, Trump has largely consolidated power in the Republican Party.

“I DON’T CARE!” Trump wrote in his social media post. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”

Lawmakers who support the bill have been predicting a big win in the House this week with a “deluge of Republicans” voting for it, bucking the GOP leadership and the president.

In his opposition to the proposal, Trump even reached out to two of the Republican lawmakers who signed it. One, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, met last week with administration officials in the White House Situation Room to discuss it.

The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted.

“There could be 100 or more” votes from Republicans, said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., among the lawmakers discussing the legislation on Sunday news show appearances. “I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote.”

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced a discharge petition in July to force a vote on their bill. That is a rarely successful tool that allows a majority of members to bypass House leadership and force a floor vote.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had panned the discharge petition effort and sent members home early for their August recess when the GOP’s legislative agenda was upended in the clamoring for an Epstein vote. Democrats also contend the seating of Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was stalled to delay her becoming the 218th member to sign the petition and gain the threshold needed to force a vote. She became the 218th signature moments after taking the oath of office last week.

Massie said Johnson, Trump and others who have been critical of his efforts would be “taking a big loss this week.”

“I’m not tired of winning yet, but we are winning,” Massie said.

The view from GOP leadership

Johnson seems to expect the House will decisively back the Epstein bill.

“We’ll just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide,” adding that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing “far more information than the discharge petition, their little gambit.”

The vote comes at a time when new documents are raising fresh questions about Epstein and his associates, including a 2019 email that Epstein wrote to a journalist that said Trump “knew about the girls.” The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the Republican president.

Johnson said Trump “has nothing to hide from this.”

“They’re doing this to go after President Trump on this theory that he has something to do with it. He does not,” Johnson said.

Trump’s association with Epstein is well-established and the president’s name was included in records that his own Justice Department released in February as part of an effort to satisfy public interest in information from the sex-trafficking investigation.

Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise. Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial, also had many prominent acquaintances in political and celebrity circles besides Trump.

Khanna voiced more modest expectations on the vote count than Massie. Still, Khanna said he was hoping for 40 or more Republicans to join the effort.

“I don’t even know how involved Trump was,” Khanna said. “There are a lot of other people involved who have to be held accountable.”

Khanna also asked Trump to meet with those who were abused. Some will be at the Capitol on Tuesday for a news conference, he said.

Massie said Republican lawmakers who fear losing Trump’s endorsement because of how they vote will have a mark on their record, if they vote “no,” that could hurt their political prospects in the long term.

“The record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency,” Massie said.

A MAGA split

On the Republican side, three Republicans joined with Massie in signing the discharge petition: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Boebert.

Trump publicly called it quits with Greene last week and said he would endorse a challenger against her in 2026 “if the right person runs.”

Greene attributed the fallout with Trump as “unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files.” She said the country deserves transparency on the issue and that Trump’s criticism of her is confusing because the women she has talked to say he did nothing wrong.

“I have no idea what’s in the files. I can’t even guess. But that is the questions everyone is asking, is, why fight this so hard?” Greene said.

Trump’s feud with Greene escalated over the weekend, with Trump sending out one last social media post about her while still sitting in his helicopter on the White House lawn when he arrived home late Sunday, writing “The fact is, nobody cares about this Traitor to our Country!”

Even if the bill passes the House, there is no guarantee that Senate Republicans will go along. Massie said he just hopes Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., “will do the right thing.”

“The pressure is going to be there if we get a big vote in the House,” Massie said, who thinks “we could have a deluge of Republicans.”

Massie appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Johnson was on “Fox News Sunday,” Khanna spoke on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and Greene was interviewed on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The post In reversal, Trump says House Republicans should vote to release Epstein files appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

After the speech, he gave her a kiss and she beamed. Trump was back in power and Greene was positioned to be one of his most ardent political foot soldiers with Republicans controlling all levers of power in Washington.

Their alliance didn’t last the year. Now it has fractured in an explosive feud that could foreshadow more rifts within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement before next year’s midterm elections.

In recent weeks, Greene has escalated her criticism of Trump’s focus on foreign policy over what she has said should be an agenda that concentrates on Americans, as well as his reluctance to release more documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. On Friday, the Republican president said he would support a primary challenge against the Georgia congresswoman.

“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote on his social media platform as his motorcade whisked him from Air Force One to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

On Saturday, Trump tested out a new nickname for her, calling her “Marjorie Taylor Brown” because “Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!”

Trump has successfully stamped out other challenges to his power over the years, but Greene is not backing down. She even suggested that she, not Trump, may be the true champion of the “America First” agenda.

“I believe in the American people more than I believe in any leader or political party and the American people deserve so much better than how they have been treated by both sides of the aisle,” she wrote in her own post Saturday.

She also said she is worried about her safety because “threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.”

Trump backed Greene from the start

Greene is not the first lawmaker to earn Trump’s anger. Their split, however, is the most notable of his second term. She has been closely tied to him since 2020, when she began her political career in Georgia’s rural northwest.

Backing the QAnon conspiracy theory, appearing with white supremacists and brandishing assault rifles, Greene was opposed by party leaders but supported by Trump. He called her a “future Republican Star” and “a real WINNER!”

Jason Shepherd, a Republican in Georgia who resigned from party office over disagreements with Trump supporters, said 2020 was “a perfect storm of political bizarreness” during upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Georgia was one of the closely contested states where Trump disputed his loss to Democrat Joe Biden, even pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough votes to overturn the results.

Shepherd, a lawyer and political science professor who lives in Greene’s district, said “we never know what position Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to pop up with next.”

“I don’t know if she has any core convictions, except for what will help her the most,” he said.

Greene started her congressional tenure as Trump was leaving the White House, and she supported the election lies that fueled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She became a media fixture as a target of liberal scorn and a promoter of Trump-style conservatism, and was a loyal lieutenant in his comeback campaign in 2024.

But tension seemed to begin earlier this year when Greene was exploring a potential 2026 campaign against Jon Ossoff, one of Georgia’s two Democratic senators. Trump said he sent Greene a poll showing that she “didn’t have a chance.” She ultimately passed on the race and later declined to run for Georgia governor while attacking a political “good ole boy” system that she accused of endangering Republican control of the state.

A new Greene?

Greene has recently set a different, more conciliatory tone.

She went on ABC’s “The View,” a daytime talk show considered a safe space for Democrats, to say “that people with powerful voices,” especially women, “need to pave a new path.”

The rhetoric sparked speculation that Greene might be considering a run for president herself, which was later denied by her boyfriend, Brian Glenn, a conservative reporter known for his friendly questioning of Trump.

Greene also has been criticizing Trump, particularly his work with other countries. She told Tucker Carlson last month that the administration’s support for Argentina was “a punch in the gut” at a time when Americans are angry about prices for everyday needs.

Greene is one of a handful of Republicans supporting an effort to force the Justice Department to release more documents involving Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was connected to some of the country’s most powerful people. Trump has struggled to stop questions about his own links to Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 in what authorities have ruled was a suicide.

Trump has dismissed Greene’s criticism, telling reporters on Monday that “she’s lost her way.”

Shawn Harris, a retired Army general and Democrat who lost to Greene in 2024, is running against her again in 2026. He said Greene’s shift is part of her attention-seeking behavior.

“Marjorie always picks fights with people to stay in the news and it’s finally President Trump’s turn,” Harris wrote in a text message. “But neither of them has done a single thing for the hardworking people here in northwest Georgia. The way things are going lately, it’s not clear his endorsement would help anyone.”

Trump battles Democrats and Republicans in the midterms

It’s common for political coalitions to fray over time, especially when presidents are serving their second term and members of their party start pondering a future without them at the helm.

Trump has mostly avoided that so far. He has flirted with the possibility of running for a third term, despite the constitutional prohibition on extending his time in office, and exerted ironclad influence over the Republican-controlled Congress.

He faces a crucial political test next year as Democrats try to retake control of the House, which would empower them to block legislation and launch investigations of his administration.

The president has been trying to improve his party’s chances by pressuring states to redraw congressional districts to benefit Republicans, but he also is trying to purge lawmakers whom he considers disloyal. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky is already the target of a Trump-backed primary challenge, and Greene could be the next if she and the president do not reconcile, as has occasionally happened after Trump falls out with allies.

Although no one immediately announced they were jumping into the race, some are considering it.

State Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from the region who previously floated a run against Ossoff, criticized Greene. “I’m more frustrated with her than President Trump and she doesn’t care,” he said.

On Saturday, he complained about getting the “runaround” any time he called her office seeking help. He also praised Trump’s handling of the economy.

“I also have a passport full of countries from across the globe I’ve visited in the last year,” he said. “All worse than U.S.”

Asked if he would challenge Greene, Moore said in a text that “I have only one objective in life … to put America First.” ____ Amy reported from Atlanta.

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