Schumer looks to force Epstein vote into NDAA debate

John M. Donnelly, CQ-Roll Call on Sep 10, 2025

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WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer deployed a rarely used parliamentary maneuver Wednesday to try to force Republicans to vote on requiring the release of Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and sex offender.

The New York Democrat filed cloture on an amendment to the Senate’s fiscal 2026 defense authorization, known as the NDAA, that would mandate the disclosure. The vote could happen on Sept. 12, though Republicans may seek to table it soon.

If the vote occurs, the provision will need 60 votes to become part of the must-pass NDAA.

Democrats in both chambers have looked to force votes relating to the Epstein files, hoping to focus public attention on President Donald Trump’s connection with him. Trump and Epstein had a social relationship before a falling out, with Trump barring Epstein from his club at Mar-a-Lago in 2007, according to media reports.

Schumer’s gambit could worsen acrimony between the parties in the Senate. Its effects — on the NDAA debate and beyond — remain to be seen.

Asked about Schumer’s move on Wednesday, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said: “It’s a political stunt and we’ll dispose of it.”

Schumer told reporters after he filed cloture that the Trump administration has badly mishandled the Epstein records.

“There’s been so much lying, obfuscation and cover-ups,” Schumer said. “The American people need to see everything that’s in the Epstein files, and my amendment will make that happen.”

Rare gambit

Filing cloture — a procedure to seek a supermajority’s consent to vote to limit debate on an amendment or bill — is the right every senator has, with the majority leader, followed by the minority leader, getting preference to do so. At least 16 senators are required to sign a cloture petition for it to move forward.

Still, it is rare, though not unprecedented, for a minority leader to file cloture, a function normally performed by the majority leader.

A minority leader rarely files cloture at least partly because the majority leader normally fills the amendment tree to block unwanted amendments to legislation, experts said.

Yet after Republicans had frequently criticized Democrats in the last Congress for regularly filling the tree, Thune has tried not to do so this year.

That has left open the possibility — not exercised until now — of senators forcing colleagues to cast cloture votes on politically charged minority amendments such as Schumer’s Epstein proposal.

“Honestly, it’s quite rare that the amendment tree hasn’t been filled” in past years, said Jeremy Dalrymple, a former counsel for Republicans on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who was majority leader from 2015 until 2021, “would never have done this when he was majority leader,” said Dalrymple, now associate director of governance at the R Street Institute think tank.

McConnell “was an expert on parliamentary procedure, and he always filled the tree, and we’ve seen with Sen. Thune that hasn’t been the case,” Dalrymple said.

‘Political statement’

Five years ago, during Trump’s first term, Schumer filed cloture as minority leader in an effort to force a Senate vote on a measure to block the Justice Department from intervening in support of lawsuits involving the 2010 health care law known the Affordable Care Act.

In 2011, the late former Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., forced a cloture vote on an amendment to eliminate ethanol tax subsidies.

This week, Schumer may have a chance of winning the 60 votes needed in a cloture vote on the Epstein matter, if senators agree to allow it.

The subject of the Epstein records has sparked bipartisan passions.

“It’s making a really big political statement, and he might actually have the votes — he might have several Republicans that are willing to vote with him on this,” Dalrymple said.

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David Lerman, Niels Lesniewski and Daniel Hillburn contributed to this report.

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