US, House goes on holiday to avoid Epstein case

The US House will bring forward the summer recess to avoid voting on the release of documents from the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, the paedophile financier who died in a cell in 2019 and was for years a friend of Donald Trump's before falling from grace and being convicted of sexual abuse and international child trafficking.

This was made clear by the US House Speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, who explained that he wanted to avoid "political games": the Democrats, according to him, are in fact trying to force a vote on measures that would oblige the Justice Department to make public documents relating to the life and death of the financier.

The work of the House of Representatives will be suspended for five weeks, starting tomorrow, a day earlier than planned, and is not expected to resume until September. This is the - somewhat anomalous - decision taken by President Trump's loyalists who are trying to contain the scandal and rumours related to Epstein.

The handling of the affair by the Republican administration leaves many doubts open. Disappointment also comes from several Republican parliamentarians who have called for the so-called Epstein files to be made public. While the Maga base of the populist right is insistently calling for more transparency: during his presidential campaign, Trump had promised to publish the documents, but in a much-criticised memo a few weeks ago, the Justice Department and the FBI tried to scuttle the affair, claiming that there is 'no credible evidence' that the paedophile financier had 'blackmailed prominent individuals in the course of his criminal actions' and that there is 'no list of Epstein's clients'. Some members of the Maga movement went so far as to call for the dismissal of Justice Minister Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

However, Johnson explained the decision to bring forward the recess by accusing the Democratic opposition of wanting to use the Epstein case as "a political battering ram": "We will not allow them," he said, "to continue to politically exploit this charade. The announcement by the speaker of the House also came after the vote of the House Oversight Committee, which had authorised the subpoena and hearing of Epstein's partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for solicitation of minors and other crimes committed together with the paedophile financier.