Luke Garrett

In 2030, he's not going to be the president, and you will have voted to protect pedophiles if you don't vote to release these files, and the president can't protect you.

Massey then said he believed 100 or more House Republicans would vote for the Epstein file bill, even though only a handful signed on to force the ballot.

Wasn't one of them Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Yeah, that's right.

And Trump recently called her a traitor and revoked his political endorsement from her after she became more critical of his policies.

Now, both Massey and Green said they don't believe Trump himself will be implicated in the files, but these public breaks with the president represented a growing and powerful fissure in the party.

Well, my sources say the House vote is still set for Tuesday.

And with Trump giving Republicans permission to support it and every Democrat signing the discharge petition, this bill has a really good chance of advancing.

In the Senate, it remains unclear if and when Majority Leader John Thune will bring this up for a vote.

But again, Trump's endorsement of the bill does not hurt, and Thune has said in the last few weeks he likes this idea of greater transparency.

But even if it passes through Congress and the White House, lawmakers Massey and Khanna were warning yesterday that the files might still be kept from the public.

So after all that, how could that be possible?

Well, Massey and Khanna raised alarm over the new Justice Department investigation into the Epstein case, something it declined to do a few months back.

Trump referenced this in his post last night.

He said his DOJ is, quote, looking at various Democrat operatives, Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc., and their relationships to Epstein, end quote.

Massey told ABC News that these investigations could mask the documents further.

If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can't be released.

So this might be a big smokescreen.

The Justice Department has not yet responded to my request for comment on whether an investigation would in fact bar them from releasing these documents, even if a law told them to do so.

That's NPR's Luke Garrett.