Congress will subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned sex trafficker who was a close associate of the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, to testify amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s decision not to release its remaining Epstein files.
The Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett introduced a motion to compel Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in a Florida prison for crimes related to the Epstein case, to testify before the House oversight committee.
The move appears to skirt an announcement early on Tuesday that officials from the Department of Justice are also planning to meet with Maxwell.
Related: DoJ to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell as Trump faces new scrutiny over Epstein ties
“We got to send a message to these dirt bags,” Burchett said in a statement posted on X, referring to the list of clients and other Epstein enablers who are assumed to be included in the remaining Epstein files, the details of which are not publicly known.
“We’ve just got to get to the bottom of this thing, folks. It’s four years and we don’t need to tolerate this stuff any more.”
Soon after Burchett’s announcement, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said he was shutting down operations in the chamber early, sending lawmakers home before a five-week summer recess.
They were scheduled to leave Washington for their districts on 24 July and be out through the month of August, but will now leave a day earlier.
The decision comes as Democrats and a handful of Republicans continue to press for files related to Epstein, sending regular legislative schedules into chaos.
“We’re not going to play political games with this,” Johnson said at a news conference.
Separately, a New York judge has ordered that the Trump administration must send more documents to support its call to release secret grand jury testimony from the 2021 Maxwell prosecution.
Judge Paul Engelmayer said New York federal court would like to “expeditiously” resolve the Trump administration’s request, but that it could not do so due to a number of missing submissions, including “why disclosure is being sought in the particular case” and “what specific information is being sought for disclosure”, he wrote.
Engelmayer said the government must file a memorandum of law no later than 29 July and ordered Maxwell and the victims to file their positions on the proposed disclosure by 5 August.
The Epstein issue has plagued the Trump administration as the president’s own supporters buck him and clamor for more information, and as details continue to emerge about Trump’s personal connections with Epstein, who was a friend of his for many years until they fell out. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had sent Epstein a lewd drawing along with a suggestive dialogue between the two men. The Trump administration responded by suing the newspaper and its owner, Rupert Murdoch.
The issue has also riven Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the Republican-led House of Representatives, led by Trump ally Johnson – who recently undermined the president by calling for the release of all files, only to back down several days later – voted to start its summer holiday early in order to avoid Epstein-related votes planned for Thursday.
Burchett said he had introduced the motion directing James Comer, chair of the committee, to authorize and issue a subpoena for Maxwell. Comer was “down with it”, Burchett said. “I believe he’s going to issue the subpoena. He’s a stand-up guy.”
He also acknowledged that he would receive “blowback, and folks up here are going to be mad at me, but ultimately and with all sincerity, I’m gonna answer my creator on this issue”.
Burchett told Axios that he did not consult Trump before calling on the committee to subpoena Maxwell. He has previously written to Comer urging him to bring Maxwell in to testify.
“She’s the last one standing,” he told Axios. “There’s nobody else alive that can tell us anything.”
He also said he believes Maxwell could “tell us the operation, how it went down, who were the supporters of it … Ultimately I’d like to see justice.”
The announcement came hours after the justice department said it was planning to send Todd Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, to Florida to meet with Maxwell. Lawyers for Maxwell said on Tuesday evening in a court filing that they had spoken to Blanche, Reuters reported.
Last week, Trump directed the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to ask a court to release all relevant grand jury testimony in Epstein’s case.
Maxwell attorney David Oscar Markus confirmed on X “that we are in discussions with the government and that Ghislaine will always testify truthfully”.
On Tuesday morning, Blanche also released a statement, posted by Bondi, saying that he plans to meet with Maxwell “in the coming days”. Blanche’s statement also defended the department’s early July release, saying it was “as accurate today as it was when it was written”.
