Democrats will force another vote on releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents during a Rules Committee meeting Monday afternoon, pressing Republicans yet again on the matter before lawmakers leave this week for August recess.

Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said in a brief interview Monday that “we’re going to give them one last chance to do the right thing before their August recess break.”

The committee is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m.

“There will be a vote,” McGovern said. He added that said Republicans are “afraid” of Trump and the possibility he’s implicated in documents.

Democrats are planning to offer GOP Rep. Thomas Massie’s bipartisan Epstein bill as an amendment during a panel meeting this afternoon, McGovern said — after the same move fueled a GOP crisis last week. They’ve also been discussing additional steps.

Republicans on the Rules Committee voted down the Democratic amendment to advance Massie’s Epstein bill. McGovern called that GOP effort “a glorified press release.” Instead, Rules Committee GOP members backed their own non-binding resolution calling for the release of a limited scope of Epstein-related documents, but Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t immediately put it to a floor vote.

Johnson doesn’t have plans to put the non-binding resolution on the floor this week before the August recess — or possibly ever — that would call for the administration to release Jeffrey Epstein-related documents, as POLITICO reported Monday. Johnson confirmed his plans to reporters later Monday.

Instead, GOP leaders have an understanding with White House officials that the House will wait to address the matter until after the monthlong break. They want to give the administration time to release documents on its own following President Donald Trump’s move to release grand jury information on the case.

Massie is pressuring GOP leaders to simply put his bill on the House floor this week, rather than waiting for him to force a vote by gathering signatures for a discharge petition, a process that won’t be ready until lawmakers return from recess in September. Johnson will not do that either, according to senior Republicans. On Monday, Johnson said “discharge petitions are never a good idea” for the majority party.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino will be the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, after the Republican steering committee voted for the New Yorker after two ballot votes Monday night.

He beat out Reps. Michael Guest of Mississippi, Carlos Giménez of Florida and Clay Higgins of Louisiana for the gavel, after Rep. Mark Green announced his retirement earlier this year. Green (R-Tenn.) officially resigned from Congress on Monday.

Garbarino, who focused his pitch around his background in cybersecurity policy, is likely to put the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as a top priority for the panel. Garbarino is currently the chair of the panel’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection subcommittee and will hit the ground running with a subpanel hearing Tuesday.

Garbarino pointed to his experience as an impeachment manager against former DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in his pitch to the steering committee. He also touched on his experience representing New Yorkers affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

House Republicans will scrap several votes this week as internal party drama over Jeffrey Epstein derails a key committee that handles legislation on its way to the floor.

The House Rules Committee came to a standstill Monday night as GOP leaders struggled to contain rank-and-file Republicans and their Democratic allies clamoring for a floor vote to compel the publication of materials related to the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender.

Committee Democrats had planned to force a vote that evening on legislation that would call for the release of the materials, as the panel worked to tee up floor consideration on a slate of unrelated bills. It was poised to be a repeat of what transpired last Thursday inside Rules, which gummed up the works for several hours.

But rather than this time work through the Democratic disruption, Republicans chose instead Monday to recess the rest of the Rules meeting altogether, with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) saying it was “unlikely” that the panel would reconvene this week at all. Later, lawmakers said there were no plans to return at all.

That means House members will depart for August recess at the week’s end without being able to vote on legislation that would not otherwise be able to pass on the chamber floor with a simple majority vote, including an immigration-related bill that would increase penalties for individuals who enter the country illegally and a water-permitting measure.

The House will still vote on measures that can be taken up under an expedited procedure typically reserved for noncontroversial........

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