Dwain Northey (Gen X)

If the modern Republican Party wanted to prove once and for all that it isn’t a nest of morally bankrupt degenerates shielding monsters, they’re doing an absolutely terrible job of it. Because nothing screams “we have nothing to hide” quite like holding Congress hostage to stop a vote on the Epstein files.

Speaker Mike Johnson — a man who never met a Bible verse he couldn’t weaponize — has decided that now, of all times, is the moment to play gatekeeper of congressional procedure. Arizona’s newly elected representative Adelita Grijalva waits, hand raised, ready to be sworn in. But Johnson suddenly discovers a deep love of “timing,” “recess protocol,” and “shutdown decorum.” How convenient that his newfound respect for process just happens to block the one vote that would bring the Epstein files — the full, unredacted rot — into the light.

It’s as if the GOP collectively said, “Sure, we’ll tank the government, torch the economy, and gut social programs — but God forbid anyone reads the Epstein documents.” The Republican leadership, the self-anointed guardians of “family values,” are treating those files like they’re the Ark of the Covenant. Don’t look too closely or your moral compass might melt.

Because let’s be honest: if the Epstein list were filled with Democrats, the files would have been plastered on Fox News before dawn, with Tucker Carlson narrating from a candlelit studio while Marjorie Taylor Greene reenacted scenes with sock puppets. The fact that the party is suddenly allergic to transparency tells us everything. You don’t barricade the vault unless you’re terrified of what’s inside.

So what’s in those files that’s worth stalling a member of Congress over? Is it Trump’s name, a few big-money donors, a handful of “family values” megachurch patriots? The silence from the GOP tells its own story — one of panic, guilt, and rot dressed up as righteousness.

Every excuse they offer, every delay, every procedural trick reeks of the same cowardice that defines their brand. The party that once claimed to protect children is now bending itself into moral pretzels to protect the predators. It’s not about justice, or privacy, or due process — it’s about survival.

If the Republican Party truly believed in innocence, they’d open the Epstein files tomorrow and let the chips fall where they may. But they won’t. Because this isn’t a party anymore — it’s a serpent pit, hissing in unison, slithering to cover its own trail.

The House of Vipers has chosen its hill to die on — and apparently, that hill is built on the bones of the truth.