The House of Representatives is empty today and tomorrow and for the next six weeks. Democrats literally chased Speaker Mike Johnson and his caucus out of Washington by asking for a simple bit of transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. House Republicans didn’t want to continue to be human shields for their president by voting to block Epstein case file releases over and over again. Good on the Dems for forcing Republicans to jet.

The House GOP didn’t run away in time to avoid a vote in an Oversight subcommittee to subpoena the Justice Department for the Epstein files. That passed 8-2, with three Republicans joining all the Democrats on the panel. The subcommittee chair, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), is “beginning to draft the subpoena” with no timeline for its issuance. So that will presumably be another attempted roadblock.

Rep. Tom Massie (R-KY) still has a separate bipartisan bill to release the Epstein files subject to a discharge petition, with enough Republican support to force it to the floor. That discharge petition, which requires a House vote on any bill when a majority of members call for one, ripens after the long recess.

This all ensures that the Epstein-Trump scandal stays in the news for the next six weeks, an extended Shark Week during a slow August recess. That gives journalists time to gather more information. And The Wall Street Journal, in the odd position of leading the charge, turned on the fire hose yesterday by confirming that Trump is in the Epstein files, that FBI Director Kash Patel told others Trump was in the Epstein files, and that Trump was informed of this in May, just a month or so before the Justice Department decided not to release the files. DOJ had already agreed to keep the files locked up by the time of this meeting, according to the report.