{"id":396147,"date":"2025-09-04T02:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396147\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T02:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T02:50:12","slug":"epstein-abuse-survivors-urge-lawmakers-to-back-bill-that-would-release-all-files-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396147\/","title":{"rendered":"Epstein abuse survivors urge lawmakers to back bill that would release all files | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>\u2019s abuse signaled their support on Wednesday for a bipartisan resolution to release all the files related to the convicted sex offender, who died in a Manhattan prison in 2019.<\/p>\n

Speaking outside the US Capitol, Anouska De Georgiou, a survivor of both Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell<\/a>, said that while \u201cevery day of this journey toward healing has come at a profound cost to my mental health\u201d, she had chosen to be there because this legislation \u201creally matters\u201d.<\/p>\n

The only motive to oppose the bill would be to \u201cconceal wrongdoing\u201d, she added, but also issued a plea to Donald Trump<\/a> to use his power and influence to help release the full tranche of records on Epstein.<\/p>\n

The section of the Capitol grounds, known as the House Triangle, was packed with reporters and demonstrators. Signs accusing the US president of \u201cprotecting pedophiles\u201d were raised alongside placards demanding the administration \u201crelease the files\u201d, and messages of support for survivors, reading \u201cwe believe you\u201d. Many of those at the news conference told personal stories of how they were abused and trafficked. Annie Farmer, now 46, said she was only 16 when she was flown to New Mexico to spend a weekend with Epstein and Maxwell.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor so many years, it felt like Epstein\u2019s criminal behavior was an open secret,\u201d Farmer said. \u201cNot only did many others participate in the abuse, it is clear that many were aware of his interest in girls and very young women and chose to look the other way because it benefited them to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same press conference, the bill\u2019s co-author, Republican representative Thomas Massie said that he is close to reaching <\/strong>the 218 signatures needed to bypass US House leadership and bring his bipartisan legislation, calling for the release of the Epstein files, to a floor vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully they can find their spines,\u201d the Kentucky lawmaker said of the Republican holdouts. \u201cI\u2019m calling on my colleagues to be one of the next two who sponsors this discharge petition.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all 212 house Democrats expected to sign on to the bipartisan effort, Massie would only need six house Republicans to sign to get it across the line. Four, including himself, have already done so. These include Maga firebrands such as representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a> of Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an issue that doesn\u2019t have political boundaries. It\u2019s an issue that Republicans and Democrats should never fight about,\u201d Greene told reporters on Wednesday. \u201cThe truth needs to come out, and the government holds the truth. The cases that are sealed hold the truth. Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s estate holds the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representative Nancy Mace has also signed the petition; the South Carolina Republican left a meeting with survivors of Epstein\u2019s abuse in tears on Tuesday. \u201cFull blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking,\u201d she wrote in a post on Twitter\/X<\/a>. \u201cI feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us.\u201d Mace has been vocal about her own allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of multiple men, including her ex-fiance.<\/p>\n

Massie\u2019s co-sponsor, Ro Khanna, a Democrat, also spoke Wednesday, and noted that any efforts to derail the bill would be misguided. \u201cThis is not against President Trump. I would like nothing more than a Truth Social post for him after this press conference saying \u2018just release the files\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s proposed resolution, the Epstein files transparency act, demands that the government release all unclassified Epstein records in the possession of the justice department, including the FBI<\/a>, US attorneys\u2019 offices and other federal agencies. Personally identifiable information would remain redacted.<\/p>\n

Massie was undeterred by the House oversight committee releasing on Tuesday a redacted trove of more than 33,000 pages of records related to Epstein, as part of their ongoing investigation. Many Democratic lawmakers said that much of the material, which includes court filings, is already public, while Massie called it \u201cwoefully incomplete\u201d.<\/p>\n

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But the document drop could stymie the remaining buy-in Massie needs from his Republican colleagues. House speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> has branded the bipartisan petition a \u201cmoot point\u201d and \u201csuperfluous\u201d, given the several subpoenas filed by the oversight committee in recent weeks. He also backed a resolution that would direct the committee to continue its investigation.<\/p>\n

Massie, for his part, was quick to dismiss this move today as achieving \u201cabsolutely nothing\u201d. He expressed appreciation for the work of oversight chairperson James Comer, also a Republican representative from Kentucky, but said that the committee is allowing the justice department \u201cto curate all of the information\u201d that they\u2019re providing.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the White House called the discharge petition \u201ca very hostile act\u201d that would undermine that work of the House oversight committee and the justice department\u2019s compliance in the overall investigation. Trump also said on Wednesday that the call for more information about Epstein to be released is a \u201cDemocrat hoax that never ends\u201d.<\/p>\n

When Congress returned from recess this week, Massie was quick to formally file <\/a>what\u2019s known as a \u201cdischarge petition\u201d \u2013 a manoeuvre that allows legislation that has been sitting in committee for more than 30 days to be put to a vote if a majority of House members sign onto it. The bill would then enter a seven-day waiting period before it heads to the House floor.<\/p>\n

Even if the petition receives that support, and the bill passes the House, the legislation will still need to be approved by the Senate, where Republican majority leader John Thune has given no indication he will put it up for a vote.<\/p>\n

Should it pass the Senate, it faces another obstacle: the president. Trump\u2019s condemnation of the Epstein file furor, as a distraction created by the Democrats<\/a>, could result in him vetoing the legislation. That would punt the issue back to Congress, where the bill would need two-thirds majority support to overcome his veto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several survivors of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s abuse signaled their support on Wednesday for a bipartisan resolution to release all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-396147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115143758600544625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}