Massie Says He Has Enough Signatures to Force Vote on Epstein Files

Republican Representative Thomas Massie says he has enough support to force a vote on his second Epstein Transparency Act.

“When we return next week, we’ll get 218 signatures for Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which guarantees a vote,” Massie wrote Thursday on X. “Survivors will be able to get their own records, State Attorneys General can prosecute crimes, and we can take the DOJ to court for keeping critical files hidden.”

Massie, who has made an enemy of Trump by opposing the Iran war and pushing for the full release of the Epstein files, first passed the Epstein Transparency Act in November 2025. And though President Trump signed it into law, Massie, Democrats, and a few Republicans argue that his administration didn’t fully abide with what the act required.

“The Department of Justice has flagrantly and consistently ignored EFTA’s disclosure requirements,” Massie wrote earlier this summer in his announcement of the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Ben Ray Luján and Jeff Merkley, and Democratic Representatives Ro Khanna and Teresa Leger Fernández.

“The Department of Justice continues to unlawfully withhold over 3 million Epstein files that should be released to the public,” he continued. “In addition, the DOJ is unlawfully maintaining heavy redactions on the files it is releasing. State attorneys general and victims should have the right to sue the Attorney General of the United States to compel compliance with a transparency law President Trump signed.”

House Democrats are coming for law firms that cut deals with President Donald Trump.

Speaking on MS NOW Wednesday night, Representative Jamie Raskin, who is poised to become chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said that the several law firms that struck deals with Trump could expect to receive subpoenas next year.

In the early days of Trump’s second term, the president issued several executive orders revoking the security clearance of and threatening to pull all federal contracts from large law firms that had supported clients and causes he felt were contrary to his agenda. In response, nine firms agreed to degrading deals that gutted their work on certain policy areas such as immigration, ended company DEI programs, and required them to provide pro bono legal work for Trump’s administration. Altogether, the deals signed with the president amounted to nearly $1 billion worth of free legal work.

“There are major law firms in America, including Paul Weiss, that have capitulated to these coercive tactics from Donald Trump and have basically surrendered and made all sorts of outrageous concessions,” Raskin said on MS NOW.

Trump’s executive order had targeted Paul Weiss over the work of Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who previously oversaw the Manhattan district attorney’s office’s investigation into Trump’s alleged financial crimes. As part of bowing to Trump’s threat, the firm acknowledged that Pomerantz had committed wrongdoing, and agreed to stop making decisions about hiring and promotions based on considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The current ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, Raskin had requested information from several firms about the exact details of their agreements; the answers they provided indicated that the president may have gotten the short end of the stick. While the firms had reportedly agreed to provide millions of dollars of pro bono work for specific causes, many asserted that they had total authority over the selection of their clients.

A group of Democratic lawmakers sent another series of letters to law firms earlier this year, warning that the Trump administration’s scheme to use “coercive and illegal measures” to blackmail firms could potentially violate federal laws against bribery, defrauding the public, and even racketeering.

Roy Cooper won North Carolina’s Senate seat before the polls even opened on Election Day.

The number of early votes cast for the Democratic nominee totaled more than 1,728,000, besting the total number of votes cast overall for his Republican opponent, Michael Whatley, by roughly 85,000 votes, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. By the time the polls closed, Whatley received 1,643,000 votes, while Cooper received nearly 2,468,000 in total.

Cooper managed to flip the seat blue, helping the national caucus obtain a majority in the upper chamber. He will replace outbound North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement earlier this year.

Speaking to a crowd at his victory party in Raleigh on Tuesday, Cooper pledged to orient his focus in Washington toward affordability and ending the war in Iran.

“I am still a prisoner of hope,” Cooper said. “I truly believe that our best days lie ahead, that we can make the course correction that our great country so badly needs. That North Carolina and the United States have a future teeming with possibilities.”

Cooper previously served as the Tar Heel State’s governor from 2017 to 2025, but his election on Tuesday was just one component of a blue wave that swept over the historic battleground state.

Despite a gerrymandered map that was intended to give Republicans a steep advantage on Tuesday, Democrats gained at least five House seats and are projected to win a sixth. Five districts in the state have yet to report their final vote counts, but so far, Republicans have won zero seats. (Current forecasts estimate they will win four.)

The Democratic Party has amassed such a strong majority in this week’s midterm elections that they may be able to challenge President Donald Trump’s veto power.

Republicans’ only remaining hope to thwart Democratic majorities’ plans rests in Trump’s veto power. However, the president’s veto can be overridden by a two-thirds majority congressional vote, equivalent to 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate.

Democrats are projected to win at least 250 seats in the House of Representatives, and are reportedly on track to win roughly 260 seats total, meaning that they will only need to convince 30 Republican lawmakers in order to bypass the president’s official objections. Twenty-nine House races remained undecided Thursday.

As the results rolled in Tuesday night, and a Democratic majority appeared imminent in both chambers of Congress, Trump posted an image of a red MAGA-style hat that read “VETO.” Now, it seems that the president can’t even count on that as the Democrats continue to defeat his party members.

Democrats apparently didn’t even need to run to win over Trump country this midterm election.

Iowans were so pissed off with Republicans on Tuesday that they elected Eric Armstrong to the state House. The catch: Armstrong, a retired railroad executive, pulled out of the race in September due to health issues.

Nonetheless, he bested his Republican opponent, Keith Jones, by roughly nine percentage points, or 865 votes, according to results tabulated by the Associated Press.

On September 7, Armstrong posted to his Facebook account that he would step away from the race effective immediately.

“Running a successful campaign requires immense physical and mental energy. Recently, I have been facing some personal health issues that require my full attention and immediate care,” he wrote at the time.

“Because I must prioritize my health and recovery at this time, I am stepping down from my campaign, effective immediately,” he continued. “This was a deeply difficult choice. However, I know it is the right one.”

Armstrong was still elected to fill a state House position vacated by Josh Turek, who managed to flip Iowa’s U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday.

It’s an enormous change of pace from how Iowa’s 20th House of Representatives district was feeling even two years ago, when it swung in favor of Donald Trump by a margin of 20 percentage points. Beyond that, Iowa’s politics have been about as Trumpian as it gets: The state voted to send the MAGA leader to the White House all three times he was on the ballot.

Speaking with The New York Times via phone Wednesday, Armstrong said he would “do my best to represent” Iowa’s 20th district.

“But I still have health issues, that’s what I’m struggling with,” he noted.

Even if he has to miss votes, local political experts argue it won’t be a huge cause for concern.

“Iowa has a part-time legislature that meets from January to May or so,” University of Iowa professor and expert on Hawkeye State politics Timothy Hagle told Newsweek. “If he had to miss some time it probably won’t be a major concern given that Turek missed a lot of votes this year,” given the priorities of Turek’s Senate campaign.