Congress is back in town, and so is the pressure to release the Epstein files. Immediately after the House of Representatives convened, Representatives Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna filed their discharge petition, which could soon force the speaker to hold a floor vote on their measure to force the Justice Department to release all its files on Jeffery Epstein.

A discharge petition is a way for a majority of the House to force a vote on a measure over the objections of its speaker, which means in practical terms it must get 218 signatures (a majority of 435) from House members within a week of being filed. All Democrats are expected to sign the petition, and so far Massie has three other Republicans on board as well (Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace). Massie needs two more Republicans to get across that 218 threshold. He is trying to encourage his fellow party members to join him, but the White House is reportedly pushing back on any who have indicated any interest in doing so. From a press conference today, Massie lamented: "The message is that there's 200 Republicans who could do something to protect, to get justice for the victims and survivors, and I only need two of 200, and none of them are stepping up to the plate." There were a few other GOP House members in the audience at this press conference, but none of them would publicly commit to supporting the discharge petition -- at least not yet. At least two gave rather non-committal answers when asked by reporters what they were going to do, though.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson is doing everything he can to help the White House bury or deflect the issue. A quick motion was passed today (on a party-line vote) that is completely meaningless. It offers support for the House committee which has subpoenaed the Epstein files, but nothing more. This committee was forced to issue this subpoena right before the long summer break, in defiance of Johnson and Donald Trump's wishes. But so far, the Justice Department has been slow-walking its response. They released their first batch of files to the committee which, according to the Democrats on the committee, consisted of 97 percent already-public documents. There is no actual timeline on the subpoena, which means the Justice Department will likely continue to drag things out by releasing stuff the public has already seen as slowly as it can possibly get away with. Massie's petition would force the release of all the files within 30 days.

Even if the petition by Massie and Khanna ultimately succeeds, and even if the House votes to pass it, there's no guarantee it will work, however. It would still have to pass the Senate and then (importantly) be signed by Donald Trump. No matter what the chances in the Senate, that last one doesn't seem likely -- which would mean the measure would actually need a two-thirds majority in both houses to overcome a veto. Which seems highly unlikely, at least at this point. Things could change (if public pressure increases, especially from the MAGA crowd), but right now it just doesn't seem to have anywhere near enough Republican support to cross that high bar.

What changed today -- and it remains to be seen what sort of impact it will have -- is that the victims are beginning to speak out in favor of forcing the release of all the files. Up until now, even with the political and media frenzy that occurred before the congressional break surrounding the subject, the victims have largely been ignored in all of this. There are reportedly up to a thousand women who were victimized by this sex trafficking enterprise, but very few are willing to brave the dangers of going public, since such a powerful array of forces seem to be lined up against the release of all the names of the co-conspirators of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

A group of the victims appeared at Massie's press conference today, and they have been doing media interviews as well. They offer heart-wrenching testimony as to what they had to endure, and their very real fears of the powerful men who exploited them. The more their stories are told -- and their stories are the real heart of the matter here -- the more pressure might be increased for the full release of the Epstein files.

Johnson and the White House have been pushing the rationale that they simply can't release all of the files, because they want to protect the victims. But when the victims themselves are saying: "Go ahead and release the files," this doesn't carry much weight. Nobody's asking for the public release of unredacted files complete with the victims' names, after all. What they're asking for is that the names of the perpetrators be unredacted. This is an important distinction that Johnson and the White House have been trying to blur.

One interesting tactic was mentioned today which could be a game-changer. The victims, as a group, already know at least a portion of the "client list." They know it because they lived it. They could name names, to put it as simply as possible, even without Justice Department files to back them up.

However, they know what they would risk by doing so. These are, after all, reportedly very rich and powerful men. So I would expect that if any such victim-compiled list is ever released, it won't be in a direct manner but rather as a back-door leak to the media. But if such a list does appear, the ball will then be in the Justice Department's court -- if some of these men weren't Epstein's clients, then prove it by releasing what you know about who was.

The biggest question right now is how the MAGA crowd will react. Before the congressional break, they were pretty strongly for releasing all the files, which is exactly what both Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi had promised them. After Maxwell was interviewed, however, some of this rage from the right abated, from those who were willing to take her word that Trump wasn't involved in any way. It remains to be seen whether or not the new political and media focus on the issue will cause any repeat of the rather loud and pointed cries from Trump's supporters on the right to release all the files. Because while Democrats are happy to vote to release the files (knowing how scared Trump is of the whole issue), it will ultimately be right-wing pressure that changes any minds of the Republicans in Congress. If their phones start lighting up once again with thousands of calls from constituents saying: "End the cover-up! Release the files!" then that might be enough for them to sign on to the Massie/Khanna discharge petition. Republicans in Congress live in fear of Trump's wrath, but they also fear their chances of getting re-elected should their base voters turn on them.

All they need is two more. The clock is ticking. We should know within the next few days whether two more Republicans will step up to the plate or not.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant