Congress voted overwhelmingly Tuesday in favor of legislation that would force the Justice Department to release all its documents related to now-convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — a major victory for lawmakers in both parties who have been leading the charge for months.
When the final vote in the House of Representatives, 427-1, was read, there were several Epstein Survivors those sitting in the gallery hugged each other and loud cheers rang through the room. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., was the only legislator who votes no.
Just hours later, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took to the floor and requested unanimous consent for the measure to pass in the House once the bill was sent through the House of Representatives.
Not a single senator objected.
It means that once the paperwork is sent from the House of Representatives to the Senate, the bill will be sent directly to President Donald Trump, who has promised to sign it into law.
The measure, taken last week enough support from both parties is assured to go directly to the House of Representatives received a big boost this weekend when Trump reversed his position and urged Republicans to support it.
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — the bipartisan duo that co-authored the legislation and successfully forced a vote in the House of Representatives over the objections of leadership — had tried to increase the vote count in recent days to put pressure on the Senate.
The votes in both chambers exceeded their expectations.
At a candlelight vigil with Epstein survivors and lawmakers outside the Capitol Tuesday night, survivor Annie Farmer invoked the memory of Virginia Giuffre, the Epstein survivor and sex abuse advocate who committed suicide in April at the age of 41. Her memoirs: “Nobody’s girl”, was published posthumously last month.
“She immediately brought us all together and had a vision of what could happen, what people could learn from this, what she wanted to do with this platform and bring that out in such a courageous way,” Farmer said, breaking down in tears.
“I feel like she’s here with us. I feel like she can see this. So thank you, Virginia, for everything you’ve done for us,” she continued.
The bill would require the attorney general to release in a searchable and downloadable format “all unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” relating to Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, flight logs or travel records, people and entities associated with Epstein, and internal Justice Department emails, notes and other internal communications.
This data would have to be released “no later than 30 days” after the law comes into effect.
The legislation states that the attorney general may withhold or redact any information that identifies victims or would jeopardize an active federal investigation.
Before the House vote, Massie, Khanna and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., held an emotional news conference outside the Capitol with more than a dozen Epstein survivors, urging senators to take up the bill quickly.
“You had Jeffrey Epstein, who literally created an island of rape — a rape island — and you had rich and powerful men, some of the richest people in the world, who thought they could deal with bankers, bribe politicians and abuse and rape American girls without consequences,” Khanna told reporters on Tuesday.
“Because survivors spoke out, because of their courage, the truth will finally come out,” he added. “And when it comes out, this country will really have a moral reckoning.”
Earlier in the day, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had worked to convince the Senate to change language in the bill to better protect victims’ identities. Higgins, the only one who did not vote, wrote on
But Massie urged his fellow Republicans not to “screw it up in the Senate.” And in the end, with such a big vote in the House of Representatives, no Republican senator dared to stand in the way.
“We fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the vice president to get this victory,” Massie said, adding that opponents deserved some “praise” for ultimately passing the legislation. “They are finally on the side of justice.”
Why Trump changed course
Momentum had built around Epstein’s resignation request in the House of Representatives, allowing rank-and-file members to bypass leadership and force a vote.
All Democrats in the House of Representatives were on board, and after half the House signed the agreement request for dismissal To force a vote, a flood of Republicans began announcing they would vote for it.
Trump and the White House had been working behind the scenes to halt the effort, trying to pressure a handful of Republican women to withdraw the petition.
But the writing is on the wall: Trump abruptly changed course Sunday evening, message about Truth Social that Republicans in the House of Representatives should vote for the bill. On Friday, Trump instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi investigate Epstein’s ties to prominent Democrats and financial institutions.
Trump, who had supported releasing the Epstein files before his re-election last year, vowed Monday to sign the legislation if it reached his desk, which he said would allow the Republican Party to turn the page and focus on the economy.
“Some of the people we mentioned are looked at very seriously because of their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but they were with him the whole time — that wasn’t me. That wasn’t me at all,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
“What I simply don’t want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party, including the fact that Democrats are entirely blamed for the shutdown,” he continued.
Jena-Lisa Jones stood with fellow Epstein survivors on Tuesday and lashed out at Trump the new DOJ probe.
“I beg of you, President Trump: please stop making this political,” Jones said. “It’s not about you, President Trump. You are our president. Please start acting like it. Show some class, show real leadership, show that you really care about people other than yourself.”
Jones said she voted for Trump. “Your conduct in this matter has been a national disgrace,” she said.
Asked about the criticism, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “Democrats and the media knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them, while President Trump called for transparency and is now providing it with thousands of pages of documents as part of the ongoing Oversight investigation.”
A conservative Trump ally in the House of Representatives told NBC News that Republicans are deeply frustrated with the White House’s dismissive handling of the Epstein saga and have privately encouraged the White House to change strategy — which was not communicated until Friday, days before Trump raised the issue.
The White House was also warned that there would be massive Republican defections in the House of Representatives.
Thousands of documents released
The Justice Department has already reversed the case tens of thousands of documents from the Epstein investigation to the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting its own investigation and has made much of that data public.
In addition, Democrats on the Oversight Committee last week released a series of emails from Epstein to Maxwell and journalist Michael Wolff that refer to Trumpwho turned over Epstein’s estate in response to a subpoena. In a 2019 email, Epstein wrote of Trump: “Of course he knew about the girls when he asked Ghislaine to stop,” but he did not accuse Trump of any wrongdoing.
Trump has consistently denied his involvement in Epstein’s crimes. The two men had dated in the 1980s and 1990s, including at a 1992 party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where they are seen on video talking about women. But Trump and Epstein fell out in the 2000s, when Trump accused Epstein of it rent away girls and young women from his resort’s spa. Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida charges of soliciting prostitution with a minor. In July 2019, the Justice Department charged him with sex trafficking of minors. A month later, authorities said, Epstein committed suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial.
Johnson has been arguing for months that the Epstein legislation is unnecessary because the Oversight Committee has released documents to the public. He dodged questions on Monday about Trump’s about-face and his conversations with the president.
“He never had anything to hide. He and I had the same concern: that we wanted to ensure that the victims of these heinous crimes are fully protected from disclosure, those who do not want their names published,” Johnson told reporters. “And I’m not sure the discharge application does that, and that’s part of the problem.”
Megan Lebowitz, Tara Prindiville, Frank Thorp V and Brennan Leach contributed.
#Congress #approves #sending #Epsteins #bill #Trumps #desk