House set to vote to release Epstein files following months of pressure
WASHINGTON — The House is poised to vote overwhelmingly on Tuesday to demand the Justice Department release all documents tied to its investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
President Trump, who initially worked to thwart the vote before reversing course on Sunday night, has said he will sign the measure if it reaches his desk. For that to happen, the bill will also need to pass the Senate, which could consider the measure as soon as Tuesday night.
Republicans for months pushed back on the release of the Epstein files, joining Trump in claiming the Epstein issue was being brought up by Democrats as a way to distract from Republicans’ legislative successes.
But that all seismically shifted Sunday when Trump had a drastic reversal and urged Republicans to vote to release the documents, saying there was “nothing to hide.”
“It’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The reversal came days after 20,000 documents from Epstein’s private estate were released by lawmakers in the House Oversight Committee. The files referenced Trump more than 1,000 times.
In private emails, Epstein wrote that Trump had “spent hours” at his house and “knew about the girls,” a revelation that reignited the push in Congress for further disclosures.
Trump has continued to deny wrongdoing in the Epstein saga despite opposing the release of files from the federal probe into the conduct of his former friend, a convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker. He died by suicide while in federal custody in 2019.
Many members of Trump’s MAGA base have demanded the files be released, convinced they contain revelations about powerful people involved in Epstein’s abuse of what is believed to be more than 200 women and girls. Tension among his base spiked when Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in July that an “Epstein client list” did not exist, after saying in February that the list was sitting on her desk awaiting review. She later said she was referring to the Epstein files more generally.
Trump’s call to release the files now highlights how he is trying to prevent an embarrassing defeat as a growing number of Republicans in the House have joined Democrats to vote for the legislation in recent days.
The Epstein files have been a hugely divisive congressional fight in recent months, with Democrats pushing the release, but Republican congressional leaders largely refusing to take the votes. The issue even led to a rift within the MAGA movement, and Trump to cut ties with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia who had long been an ardent support of the president.
“Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” Greene said at a news conference Tuesday in reference to the resistance to release the files.
Democrats have accused Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of delaying the swearing-in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, because she promised to cast the final vote needed to move a so-called discharge petition, which would force a vote on the floor. Johnson has denied those claims.
If the House and Senate do vote to release the files, all eyes will turn to the Department of Justice, and what exactly it will choose to publicly release.
“The fight, the real fight, will happen after that,” Greene said. “The real test will be: Will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in an investigation?”
Several Epstein survivors joined lawmakers at the news conference to talk about how important the vote was for them.
Haley Robson, one of the survivors, questioned Trump’s resistance to the vote even now as he supports it.
“While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Robson said.
If signed into law by Trump, the bill would prohibit the attorney general, Bondi, from withholding, delaying or redacting “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
But caveats in the bill could provide Trump and Bondi with loopholes to keep records related to the president concealed.
In the spring, FBI Director Kash Patel directed a Freedom of Information Act team to comb through the entire trove of files from the investigation, and ordered it to redact references to Trump, citing his status as a private citizen with privacy protections when the probe first launched in 2006, Bloomberg reported at the time.
Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, said the Trump administration will be forced to release the files with an act of Congress.
“They will be breaking the law if they do not release these files,” he said.