Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein files

What happened

The House Tuesday passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act in a 427-1 vote, overwhelmingly endorsing the long-shot effort to force the Justice Department to release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation. Shortly after the vote, the Senate agreed by unanimous consent to automatically pass the bill as soon as the House sent it over.

President Donald Trump, who spent months fighting “tooth and nail” to “kill” the bill, bowed to the “inevitable” earlier this week and said he would sign it, Politico said.

Who said what

“We fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House and the vice president to get this win,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors, said Tuesday. Trump “called me a traitor for standing with these women,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said at a pre-vote press conference with Epstein victims. Watching Trump fight the bill “has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA.”

Trump tried everything in his playbook to “distract” attention from the Epstein files, “which carry with them a constant reminder of the president’s friendship with a sex offender,” Luke Broadwater said in The New York Times. He “ordered Republicans to stop talking about them,” then “tried to bully House Republicans” pushing for their release, but Epstein is the “one story line” Trump “hasn’t been able to evade.”

The White House was “caught off-guard by how quickly the measure passed through Congress,” Reuters said, and Trump “remains angry about the attention paid to the Epstein matter,” which has “taken a toll” on his “public approval.” In a Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded Monday, just 20% of Americans — and 44% of Republicans — approved of his handling of the Epstein case, and 70% (including 60% of Republicans) said they believe the government is hiding information about Epstein’s clients.

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What next?

After Trump signs the law, as soon as today, the Justice Department has 30 days to release all files related to Epstein and his 2019 death in federal prison. The legislation allows the administration to redact information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations, but not due to “embarrassment, reputational harm or political sensitivity.”