Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday that Speaker Mike Johnson has to figure out a way forward on the Jeffrey Epstein controversy that’s derailed House business until the fall.
“In some fashion, in some way, he’s going to have to handle it and deal with it,” Thune said during an interview from his Senate office. “And it sounds like, yeah, that’ll be a September [issue].”
Johnson chose to wrap up House votes early this week and send members home for the summer because of growing dysfunction fueled by the bipartisan push for more disclosure around Epstein, the deceased financier and former sex offender with ties to Trump and other prominent figures.
“He’s kind of handling it how I believe he thinks he needs to,” Thune said of Johnson. “He has a constituency out there that feels, in his caucus at least, that feels very strongly about it, and can make it difficult to get anything else done.”
Thune said the Epstein conflict isn’t yet bubbling up in his chamber.
“I’m not hearing the hue and cry, I guess I would say, to do a deep dive into this – to hold hearings or anything like that,” he said. “At least not at the moment.”
Thune said he and Trump have discussed Epstein “in passing.” Thune said Trump has conveyed that “there are other priorities that should take precedence.”
“He hasn’t made any specific point with me in conversations other than to reference what’s going on, what the House is saying,” Thune said. “I think he has an opinion, which he’s stated, that he’s shared with me, but he hasn’t given us any direction or suggestion or anything like that.”