{"id":578843,"date":"2025-11-18T19:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578843\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T19:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T19:03:11","slug":"house-set-to-vote-on-release-of-epstein-documents-after-trump-u-turn-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/578843\/","title":{"rendered":"House set to vote on release of Epstein documents after Trump U-turn | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US House of Representatives is expected to pass a bill on Tuesday that will force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, after Donald Trump<\/a> and his Republican<\/a> allies backed down from their opposition amid a scandal that has dogged the president since his return to the White House.<\/p>\n

Though Trump has for months dismissed the uproar over the government\u2019s handling of the Epstein case as a \u201cDemocrat hoax\u201d, he signaled his support for the House bill over the weekend, and said he would sign the measure if it reaches his desk. On Tuesday morning, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, said he would vote for it, making it nearly certain it will be passed when the chamber votes on the bill in the afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to vote to move this forward,\u201d Johnson told reporters. \u201cI think it could be close to a unanimous vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the legislation\u2019s fate remains unclear in the Senate, where the Republican majority leader, John Thune, has not said if he will put it up for a vote. Even as he announced his support, Johnson criticized the measure for not doing enough to protect victims of Epstein, a financier who died in 2019 by what investigators determined was suicide while he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody here, all the Republicans<\/a>, want to go on record to show we\u2019re for maximum transparency, but they also want to note that we\u2019re demanding that this stuff get corrected before it is ever moves through the process and is complete,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Any changes to the bill made by the Senate would require it to be approved again by the House, probably delaying its enactment.<\/p>\n

The Epstein case returned dramatically to the public eye in July, when the justice department released a memo saying it had nothing further to disclose about the investigation. That flew in the face of statements made by Trump and his top officials that indicated they would release more information about Epstein\u2019s offenses and ties to global elites once they took office.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, four dissident Republicans in the House and all Democrats<\/a> banded together to force a vote on a bill to release the investigative files, over Johnson\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n

The leaders of that effort cheered the imminent vote, with the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna calling Tuesday \u201c<\/strong>the first day of real reckoning for the Epstein class\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause survivors spoke up, because of their courage, the truth is finally going to come out, and when it comes out, this country is really going to have a moral reckoning. How did we allow this to happen?\u201d Khanna said at a press conference, adding that the case was \u201c<\/strong>one of the most horrific and disgusting corruption scandals in our country\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s friendship with Epstein has had staying power in American politics as the late disgraced financier had links to many other rich and powerful figures in the US and overseas. The president\u2019s dramatic shift came after it became increasingly apparent that the bill would pass the GOP-controlled House, most likely with significant support from Republican lawmakers. Trump in recent days changed his approach from outright opposition to declarations of indifference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI DON\u2019T CARE!\u201d the president wrote in a social media post on Sunday. \u201cAll I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he did not want the Epstein scandal to \u201cdeflect\u201d from the White House\u2019s successes, and claimed it was a \u201choax\u201d and \u201ca Democrat problem\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll give them everything,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cLet the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it, but don\u2019t talk about it too much, because honestly, I don\u2019t want to take it away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas Massie, an iconoclastic Republican congressman who frequently defies Trump and joined with Khanna to pursue the files\u2019 release, noted the president\u2019s reversal on the Epstein issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House and the vice-president to get this win,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re on our side today, though, so let\u2019s give them some credit as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In July, Khanna and Massie turned to a procedural tactic known as a discharge petition to circumvent House leadership and compel a vote on their bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, if a majority of the 435-member House signs on.<\/p>\n

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Johnson went to extraordinary lengths to avoid a vote on the the measure, which splintered his conference. Democrats accused the speaker of delaying the swearing-in of the Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva to prevent her from becoming the decisive 218th signatory. She signed her name to the petition<\/a> moments after officially taking office last week.<\/p>\n

Thune\u2019s office declined to comment on what the senator planned to do about the bill. The Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, announced that as soon as the bill passes the House, he will move to immediately debate and vote on it in the upper chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cRepublicans have spent months trying to protect Donald Trump<\/a> and hide what\u2019s in the files. Americans are tired of waiting and are demanding to see the truth. If Leader Thune tries to bury the bill, I\u2019ll stop him,\u201d Schumer said in a statement.<\/p>\n

As president, Trump has the authority to order the justice department to release the documents in its possession, as he has previously done with the government records related to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and John F Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Emails released last week by a House committee that has opened a separate inquiry into the scandal showed Epstein believed Trump \u201cknew about the girls\u201d, though it was not clear what that phrase meant. The White House said the released emails contained no proof of wrongdoing by Trump.<\/p>\n

Last week, the president instructed the justice department to investigate prominent Democrats\u2019 ties to Epstein. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who earlier this year said a review of the files revealed no further investigative leads, replied to Trump that she would get on it right away and has appointed a prosecutor to lead the effort.<\/p>\n

The Epstein scandal is a core issue for a swathe of Trump\u2019s rightwing base, some of whom believe in conspiracy theories that surround Epstein and his coterie of powerful friends and associates. Unlike many other issues, the Epstein files have prompted rebellions from Trump\u2019s supporters in politics and the media, who have called on the president to follow through on his campaign promise to release them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, several Epstein survivors have ramped up pressure on Congress and Trump to advance the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time that we put the political agendas and party affiliations to the side. This is a human issue. This is about children,\u201d survivor Haley Robson said at the press conference. \u201cThere is no place in society for exploitation, sexual crimes or exploitation of women.\u201d<\/p>\n

She then addressed her comments to Trump, saying: \u201cWhile I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I\u2019m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can\u2019t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday night, activists projected an image of Trump and Epstein on to the justice department building, accompanied by the message: \u201cRelease the files now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US House of Representatives is expected to pass a bill on Tuesday that will force the release…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-578843","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\/115572257882720518","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578843","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=578843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}