SCOOP: Johnson closed House hours after Congress received Epstein’s financial records
ALSO INSIDE: Abe Hamadeh’s rise from Ron Paul chatrooms to Congress
Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
What Happened
Speaker Mike Johnson’s abrupt closure of the House may have more to do with stalling a congressional investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation than previously reported, and appears to have been a direct response to the Treasury’s surrender of Epstein’s financial records.
The decision to cancel all floor votes on the calendar and order House Republicans to leave Washington came only hours after the US House Oversight Committee announced it had received a first batch of documents from the US Treasury. The tranche included details regarding suspicious activity from Epstein’s bank accounts and a ledger detailing transactions between him and potential co-conspirators. Closing the House — and, by extension, shutting down the federal government — has ground the investigation to halt, and prevents the Treasury from delivering any more financial records.
US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), who sits on the Oversight Committee, believes Johnson shut down the House in order to protect those who are implicated by Epstein’s financial paper trail, and at the behest of President Donald Trump. And it wouldn’t be the first time, either: Johnson began this year’s summer recess weeks ahead of schedule in order to avoid a vote to release the Epstein files.
“I have just been so mind blown by the cover up that’s underway right now by the Trump White House over this. Mike Johnson — what’s most egregious to me is, he sat in the room with Epstein and Maxwell’s victims, and he said all sorts of things to them about how he empathizes and how he will be there for them and make sure there’s accountability,” Ansari said. “And then he also made sure to say, ‘let’s keep this investigation to the Oversight Committee. We shouldn’t talk about this in any other committee in Congress.’”
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By sequestering the Epstein discussion to the Oversight Committee as Ansari described, Johnson hoped to leverage its investigation as a controlled opposition, allowing him to appear supportive while hiding it away, slowly suffocating the pursuit of justice under layers of bureaucracy.
The Treasury’s unexpected and speedy compliance with the investigation changed that. For nine months, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had denied requests for Epstein’s financial records from a separate investigation being conducted by the Senate Finance Committee, and was expected to give House investigators the same treatment. But in a puzzling about-face, Bessent agreed to cooperate with the House only a few weeks after he had refused the Senate’s latest request.
And once Bessent agreed to help, help came quickly. The Treasury announced it would deliver Epstein’s financial records to the House on September 13 and provided the first batch on September 19. That same morning, Johnson closed the House and exiled his Republican colleagues from the Capitol, even though the decision all but guaranteed the federal government would shut down as a result.
Johnson also refused to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who won a special election on September 23, and traveled to DC to be seated in Congress. While the two may not seem connected, Johnson’s decision to delay Grijalva’s swearing in appears to be another attempt to avoid voting on anything related to Epstein.
“This is also a matter of wanting to protect rich and powerful men who likely have appointments at the highest levels of our government,” Ansari said. “I have no doubt that the delay for Adelita Grijalva’s swearing-in is related. So much of what’s happened is related.”
Trump has ordered Republicans to not allow any votes that could provide transparency into Epstein’s sex trafficking. His administration has been very against releasing any information that could implicate anyone connected to Epstein — including Trump. The administration has even gone so far as to essentially exonerate Epstein, closing the investigation without pressing charges against his estate, and claiming that — while Epstein trafficked over a thousand victims, he had no clients.
A partial publication of the Treasury’s documents by Ansari and other Democrats on the Oversight Committee has confirmed Trump’s fears and disproved his administration’s claim: within the heavily redacted six pages are the names of billionaires Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Bill Gates.
Many members of Congress believe there is incriminating evidence implicating Epstein’s co-conspirators, and have introduced bills to force the full release of the DOJ’s Epstein Files. But due to Trump’s decree, those bills have been barred from being brought to the floor for a vote.
And that’s where Grijalva comes in.
Another member of the House Oversight Committee, Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, has been working on releasing the Department of Justice’s Epstein Files through something called a discharge petition. A discharge petition is a way for members of the House to get around the Speaker and force a vote on a bill. But in order for a discharge petition to be valid, it needs a signature from 218 House Members. Massie’s petition has 217 signatures — 213 Democrats and four Republicans.
The other 215 Republicans in the House have refused to sign on, choosing instead to keep the contents of the Epstein Files hidden from the public. Once Grijalva is sworn in, Massie’s petition will have the final signature it needs in order to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files.
But Johnson ignored Grijalva, adjourned the House, and said he would swear her in when they return on October 7. Then he extended the House recess until October 13, delaying Grijalva her seat for another week.
“Speaker Johnson should be ashamed of himself for not swearing in my new colleague from Arizona,” said Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL). “He should be ashamed of himself. And I believe, as many of us believe, that they didn’t swear her in because they don’t want the 218th vote for the Epstein files to open. They are not slick, and we are not stupid.”
Attempts to Sanewash
House will stay out of session next week as Senate works to solve shutdown
Johnson cancels House votes next week, pressuring Senate Democrats to end shutdown
Johnson sends critical signal to Schumer as Dems dig in on government shutdown chaos
Far-Right Spin
Competing Proposals Fail in the Senate as Schumer Shutdown Drags On
Trump meets with budget director Russ Vought to make agency cuts during democrat shutdown
Democrats Claim They Aren’t Responsible For Troops Working Unpaid During Schumer Shutdown
It’s easy for individual members of Congress to get overlooked by national outlets as they quietly skate to reelection again, and again, and again. The following is an overview of different congressional representatives you may not have heard of, with fun facts about their origin stories they’ve tried to keep out of the public narrative.
US Rep. Abe Hamadeh, Arizona’s 8th Congressional District
Since taking office in 2025, Rep. Hamadeh has:
Sponsored 12 bills, none of which have been signed into law
Praised Trump’s military birthday parade and was rewarded with Trump’s endorsement
Allegedly altered his mom’s ballot to vote for Barack Obama in 2008
Ran on election denialism because “the crazies love to see me fighting”
Spent his teenage years on Ron Paul message boards, where his 4,000+ posts are littered with sexism, antisemitism, and confessions of voter fraud
Fun Facts
Shortly after winning his election, an elderly Democratic constituent went to Hamadeh’s office to talk with him. Instead of meeting with her, his office had her car towed. They then lied about it, but records from the tow yard have Hamadeh’s office as the point of contact for the tow. Not the most neighborly move, but odds are Hamadeh and the people he represents live anywhere near each other, since he doesn’t live in the district.
When first running for office in 2022, Hamadeh was an unknown longshot. It wasn’t until he tricked Trump into endorsing him—thanks to his announcement that he raised a massive $1 million in campaign contributions—that he became a frontrunner. The war chest turned out to be smoke and mirrors: Hamadeh’s brother loaned the campaign $1 million shortly before the campaign finance reporting period ended, and the money was returned shortly after.
And, oddly enough, Trump endorses Hamadeh on his birthday weekend every year.
After losing his bid to be Arizona Attorney General, Hamadeh spent the next several years—including during his congressional run—suing the state to swear him in. He claimed in court that he was “personally entitled” to be the state’s chief legal officer.
In the early 2000s, when he wasn’t on the Ron Paul Forums advocating for ethnic cleansing—he believed it was “good we’re targetting [sic] Arabs now, next we target Jews” — he was writing Sarah Palin fan mail.
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The Epstein files contain something worse than just the organized raping of children. The Epstein files provide evidence that Trump, and some members of his cabinet, have been, and still are, Russian assets.
The Epstein files prove that Trump is a traitor.
Johnson is a coward and instead of doing the RIGHT thing, he is CHOOSING to do the wrong thing to protect child molesters , sexual assaulters, and child rapists. Have some courage, Mike Johnson - where is your Christianity NOW??