A petition that would force the U.S. House to order the U.S. Justice Department to release all unclassified documents on Jeffrey Epstein is circulating around Congress. But southwest Missouri Congressman Eric Burlison said he’s not planning to sign the discharge petition.
“The mechanism of doing a discharge petition in a legislative body is considered one of the…most hostile moves that you can make against your leadership other than voting against the Speaker,” Burlison told Missourinet affiliate KZRG in Joplin.
The discharge petition is opposed by Republican leadership. It was filed by two congressman – Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democrat Ro Khanna of California. It has overwhelming support from Democrats but only four Republicans, including Massie, support it. Burlison has called for the release of the documents, but not like this.
“I have to weigh that decision,” he said. “Do I turn over? Because you literally turn over the floor – when you do a discharge petition, you turn over the floor activities to the minority party.”
While he wants the Epstein files released, Burlison suggests forcing the release too fast could result in accidently releasing private information on innocent victims.
“As long as it’s happening in a reasonable pace, I’m okay with that,” he said. “We’ve already accidentally released people’s, you know, identities and Social Security numbers and other releases because we were too hasty and we don’t want to make that same mistake. So, I’m okay with making sure that we take a pause and we don’t release information about victims.”
Epstein, a multi-millionaire and child sex offender, died in a New York jail cell in 2019. President Donald Trump ran on a campaign promise in 2024 to declassify the Epstein files.
Former Trump ally Elon Musk has accused the president of being connected to Epstein and said on X that Trump is the reason why the Epstein files have not been released.
KZRG Radio in Joplin contributed to this report
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