Forbes Magazine: Watch The Moment When Senate Republicans Table Motion To Compel DOJ To Release Epstein Files

"On Wednesday night, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), voted to table Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) vote to compel the DOJ to release the Epstein Files." 

Source:Forbes Magazine with a look at our tax dollars at work.

From Forbes Magazine

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) on why she voted to table Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's amendment to release the Epstein files: 

"The amendment was a surprise and disrupted the normal process of working on the defense bill."

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (Republican, Maine) on why she voted against Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's amendment to release the Epstein files: 

"The effort to insert language into Congress’ annual defense authorization bill would have forced the public release of case files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein." 

This has been the The New Democrat's point about why the Department of Justice should have already released the Epstein files by now... as Fred Schneider wrote back in August: 

"But my point is, for reasons that I've already laid out, is Donald Trump literally has nothing to lose here in releasing them. He's already the most unpopular 2nd term President, at least in the television and internet age. People who dislike and hate him now, won't dislike and hate him more after those files are released to the public. 

When the far-right of the Republican Party was talking about "family values", morality and character, the need for these things in our government, that was just something they used to attack Democrats. That's not what they care about. Someone could literally be a convicted felon, a serial liar and adulterer... if that person is on their side and represents their political values. And Mr. Trump's professional celebrity base, would probably just view him as a bigger "rockstar" and "badass", after the Epstein files are released. 

The main lesson from Watergate that both Republicans and Democrats have failed to learn the last 50 plus years, that once a bad story is about to break, or has broken, is that the worst thing that you can do is to try to cover it up. What you do, is what a good lawyer would do in court: get the bad information and evidence about your side out, before the opposition and the media does it for you. Get ahead of the story and put your own spin on it, before you lose the narrative of it. 

As long as The White House and Trump DOJ try to cover up this story, the longer it will be in the news, along with the slowing economy, rising prices, everything else that has gone wrong since Donald Trump became President again. And that's not where you want to be going into an election year. So of course they should release the redacted portions of the Epstein files to Congress and the public as soon as possible. "

From The New Democrat

And as Derik Schneider wrote last week:

"As far as the Epstein files, it's hard to imagine a sitting U.S. President being more unpopular than Donald John Trump. He's now in Joe Biden's range as far as political unpopularity, with his low 40s and upper 30s approval rating. Releasing the Epstein files even with him all over them, couldn't hurt himself anymore than what he's already done to his own political standing. If anything, it would probably just make him seem cooler with his reality TV base and perhaps even Independents who voted for him, because they think he's a "badass" or something: 

"Yeah!!! The Donald rolls with pimps and sex traffickers!!! He's even a bigger badass than we thought" 

Or phrase that last part anyway you want."

From The New Democrat

Senator Murkowski making the case for Congressional term limits with just this 1 statement right here: 

"The amendment was a surprise and disrupted the normal process of working on the defense bill."

This is what you can sound like when you've been in Congress for over 20 years: you run out of good policy arguments to vote against something that could hurt you with your right-wing, if you vote against them and instead rely on procedure, because you don't want to offend other voters in your state, or hurt your credibility in Washington. 

And Senator Collins who is now a 5 term U.S. Senator, who is at least considering running for reelection in 26, (even though she's pretty unpopular in Maine) gets caught in-between 2 voting blocs that she needs to get reelected there in Maine: the MAGA base there and more independent minded Democrats in that state, as well Independents in general and this is how she explained her vote yesterday: 

"The effort to insert language into Congress’ annual defense authorization bill would have forced the public release of case files on the sex trafficking investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein." 

From recent Washington reporting on Congress, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (Republican, Kentucky) thinks he's very close getting the 218 votes that he needs to bring a resolution to the floor that would force the House floor. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (Democrat, New York) is working on the same resolution, perhaps even with Representative Massie. 

How much do you want to bet if the House votes to release the Epstein files, 2-3 weeks from now, and Chuck Schumer brings it up for a vote again in the Senate, that Senators Murlowski and Collins will vote for the amendment, then? And maybe 5-10 more Senate Republicans as well. I think they're just buying their time here. They want to know that it's going to pass the House, first, before going on the record in favor of it themselves. Which is another argument for Congressional term limits: only voting for legislation that you think is politically safe for you to vote for. 

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