Senate approval sends Epstein disclosure measure to Trump

REUTERS/ANNABELLE GORDON TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Survivors Lisa Phillips, Jess Michaels, and Annie Farmer react as Sky Roberts, brother of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s late victim Virginia Giuffre, speaks during a press conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act ahead of a House vote on the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., today.

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House, Senate approve Epstein disclosure measure

WASHINGTON >> The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress voted almost unanimously today to force the release of Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an outcome President Donald Trump had fought for months before ending his opposition.

Two days after Trump’s abrupt about-face, the House of Representatives passed the measure with a vote of 427-1, sending a resolution requiring the release of all unclassified records on Epstein to the Republican-majority Senate, which swiftly approved it, setting the stage for the bill to go to Trump for his signature.

The public and increasingly bitter feud among Republicans over the Epstein files had fractured relations between Trump and some of his most ardent supporters.

Before the House vote, about two dozen survivors of Epstein’s alleged abuse joined a trio of Democratic and Republican lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol to urge the release of the records. The women held photographs of their younger selves, the age at which they said they first encountered Epstein, a New York financier who fraternized with some of the most powerful men in the country.

Afterward, they stood to applaud lawmakers from the House’s public gallery, some of them crying and hugging each other.

The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019.

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Despite his changed position on the bill, Trump remains angry about the attention paid to the Epstein matter. He called a reporter who asked about it today in the Oval Office a “terrible person” and said the television network the journalist worked for should have its license revoked.

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump told reporters while hosting a visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”

Trump socialized and partied with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s before what he calls a rift, but the old friendship has become a rare weak spot for the president with his supporters. A Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Monday found that 44% of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of the matter, well below the 82% who approve of his overall performance.

“Please stop making this political, it is not about you, President Trump,” Jena-Lisa Jones, who said Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14, told a press conference outside the Capitol a few hours before the vote. “I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”

Trump has said he had no connection to Epstein’s crimes and has begun calling the issue a “Democratic hoax,” despite some Republicans being among the loudest voices calling for the release of the records from criminal investigations of Epstein.

Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who led the effort to force the vote, accused the Justice Department from the House floor of “protecting pedophiles and sex traffickers.”

“How will we know if this bill has been successful?” he said before the vote. “We will know when there are men, rich men, in handcuffs, being perp-walked to the jail. And until then, this is still a cover-up.”

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