WASHINGTON — When Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., left Washington in July for the long summer recess, he had nearly a dozen Republicans ready to sign on to his effort to force a vote on his bill demanding that the Justice Department release all of the Epstein files.

When he returned Tuesday, Massie had just three still on board — and they were all women.

Each defied President Donald Trump in backing the effort, and each appeared moved to do so at least in part because of experiences that made them sympathetic to the accusers of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

On Wednesday, with the White House warning GOP lawmakers that signing on to the discharge petition demanding the full release of the Epstein files would be viewed as a “very hostile act,” a number of Republicans who had previously expressed support for the petition quietly backed off.

But for Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, three attention-courting politicians who went ahead and signed anyway, the Epstein affair appears to transcend loyalty to Trump.

The gender divide within the House GOP on the Epstein case echoes one that emerged earlier this year in the Senate during fraught confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary who faced his own accusations of having abused women, all of which he denied. Then, too, despite widespread private concerns among Republicans about Hegseth’s fitness for the job, three women were among the few GOP senators willing to publicly voice skepticism.

Then, as now, the women were under immense pressure from a vengeful White House to fall in line. In both cases, most of their male colleagues who had previously expressed hints of concern cited what they said were equally compelling reasons not to act on those concerns.

The episodes were reminders that the male-dominated GOP, led by a president who has been found liable for sexual abuse, includes relatively few elected officials who have firsthand experience with the challenges that women routinely face.

Breaking With Trump, Responding to Voters

The three MAGA women now breaking with Trump are also in sync with the demands they are hearing from their voters on the Epstein matter.

Massie said he was not surprised that those hanging strong were his female colleagues.

“It’s hard for Trump to attack the women, and there’s a lot of pressure from the White House,” he said in an interview. “What are you going to do, tell a woman she can’t stand up for survivors of sexual abuse? The White House can’t do that as far as they have with the men.”

All three of the MAGA women who have broken with the White House to demand more transparency on the Epstein investigation typically have positioned themselves as die-hard loyalists to Trump, even as he has faced sexual assault allegations himself. In this case, though, they have firmly rejected the president’s characterization of the Epstein case as “a Democrat hoax that never ends.”

Mace on Tuesday burst out of a closed-door meeting with some of Epstein’s victims red-faced and crying, refusing to speak to reporters standing in the hallway outside.

Mace has built much of her political persona around being a survivor of trauma. In the past, she has spoken openly about being molested at a swimming pool when she was 14, saying that for years she blamed herself for wearing a two-piece bathing suit that day. She said she was raped when she was 16 and subsequently dropped out of high school.

Earlier this year, in a graphic speech on the House floor, Mace accused her former fiance and three other men of having drugged and raped her and other women, and of filming and taking lewd photographs of women and underage girls without their consent. The men have denied the allegations.

In an interview Wednesday, Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina and angling for Trump’s endorsement in the race, said that she had not been threatened by the White House and that she did not expect to be penalized politically for signing Massie’s discharge petition.

“The White House, the president, they know and understand my story; they get it,” she said. “I’m not going to move from where I am because it’s a deeply personal issue for me.”

Boebert, who grew up moving around the country and living with different men her mother was dating, has been less vocal about her own experiences. But she has also alluded to abuse and trauma. In her memoir, Boebert wrote that one of the men she lived with for a time in Colorado when she was young was verbally and physically abusive to her mother.

During her divorce last year, Boebert was also granted a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband, Jayson Boebert, after she said he was threatening to harm her and enter the family’s home without permission.

These MAGA women are more frenemies than friends. But Lauren Boebert notably sat behind Mace during her graphic floor speech earlier this year in a rare show of support.

‘We Should Have Transparency’

Boebert this week said that Trump may be shown to be right that the whole Epstein saga is a “hoax.” But she said she wasn’t willing to bet on it without the full release of documents to prove it.

“I think we should have transparency,” Boebert said.

Greene has never spoken about any personal experiences with abuse or assault. But she said as a woman and a mother of daughters, she felt compelled to support the survivors.

“They have carried with them shame,” Greene said of the women demanding the release of all Justice Department files on Epstein, speaking at the news conference in front of the Capitol on Wednesday. The lawmaker emphasized, however, that “the shame does not fall on these brave, courageous women.”

“The shame falls on every single person that coldly turns a blind eye to their abuse,” she said. “The shame falls on every single person that enabled it.”

Greene added, “Anyone that is being abused, it is not your fault. You should live with no guilt or fear or shame. All of the fault belongs to the evil people that do these things.”

Greene has been a staunch ally and defender of Trump, unlike two of the three female GOP senators who broke with their party to publicly question Hegseth’s fitness amid accusations of abuse and sexual assault.

Those two, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, ultimately voted against his confirmation, along with Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

At the time, Murkowski said she had concerns about Hegseth’s character and noted the allegations of sexual assault “did nothing to quiet my concerns.” Another woman who was alarmed at the allegations, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, swallowed her reservations and voted for his confirmation after threats from Trump’s allies that they would recruit a primary challenger against her. (Ernst announced this week that she would not seek reelection.)

A similar retreat appeared to be underway in the House, where Massie and his Democratic partner in the Epstein effort, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, were short of the signatures they would need to force action on legislation demanding the release of the files.

One woman who appeared to drop her support of the Epstein petition under pressure from Trump and House leaders was Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.

Luna, who had been a vocal supporter of Massie’s effort, said she was now satisfied with the documents that the Justice Department had turned over to the House Oversight Committee, though most of the 33,295 pages had already been public.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Annie Karni/Eric Lee

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