What the Epstein files votes confirm about Idaho Republicans | Opinion

As if we needed any more proof that Republican politicians are simply taking orders from President Donald Trump, the House’s near-unanimous vote Tuesday to order the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, after months of delays, excuses and obstruction — and only until Trump said it was OK to release them — should remove all doubt.

The Senate followed suit Tuesday and voted unanimously to release the files.

After Trump and Republicans spent months and months calling it all a “hoax.”

The legislative branch is supposed to be a check on executive branch power, but Republicans — including Idaho’s U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher — have been guilty of abdicating that responsibility and allowing Trump to amass far too much power.

In the past 10 months, Trump, with little or no fight from legislative Republicans, has killed congressionally approved funding for a number of programs, including U.S. AID, National Institutes for Health, National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among others.

Trump is using the military as law enforcement in American cities. He’s blowing up what he says are drug boats off the coast of Venezuela without apparent justification or authorization.

He’s dismantling the Department of Education and has cut college grants.

Trump pardoned all of the convicted criminals from the 2020 Capitol riot, while Crapo, Risch, Simpson, Fulcher and their fellow Republicans looked the other way.

Simpson made a little squeak when Trump threatened to use “impoundment” to cut congressionally approved funding, but that was about as far as he took it.

And now we have the Epstein files.

House Republicans, including our very own Simpson and Fulcher, voted in July to oppose a motion that would have brought the Epstein Files Transparency Act to the floor for debate and a potential vote.

In September, Fulcher told Idaho Reports that he supported a full release of the Epstein files, but he continued to hide behind the excuse that victim identities needed to protected, which was just a ruse to delay the release of the files.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, for months worked as hard as he could — successfully — to avoid a vote to release the files.

But then, over the weekend, Trump publicly urged the House Republicans to release the files.

Magically, the House voted 427-1 to release the files.

See, they could have done it all along, but like lapdogs, they waited until Trump said it was OK.

(By the way, if you think Trump is going to allow the release of any information that might be damaging to him, you’ve got another thing coming.)

The bottom line is that Republicans spent months blocking the release of the files and then voted to release them only when Trump said it was OK — clear evidence, once again, the Republican members of Congress are simply taking orders from an authoritarian and not acting independently. It’s a very dangerous place for the United States to be.

We knew all along that this was happening, but Tuesday’s votes should remove all doubt.

We encourage Crapo, Risch, Simpson and Fulcher to reestablish the proper balance of power and check on executive branch power.

In other words, do your jobs.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, newsroom editors Dana Oland and Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.