- The Republican dispute over the Epstein files ends in almost unanimous votes.
- Epstein's accusers applaud lawmakers from the House public gallery.
- Trump expected to receive the bill on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress voted almost unanimously Tuesday to force the release of Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an outcome that President Donald Trump had fought for months before ending his opposition.
Two days after Trump's abrupt change of course, the House of Representatives approved the measure by a vote of 427 to 1, sending a resolution demanding the disclosure of all unclassified records about Epstein to the Republican-majority Senate, which quickly approved it. The bill could now go to Trump for his signature on Wednesday.
Trump plans to sign the bill when it reaches his desk, a senior White House official said.
The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trump's side for months, in part because it amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein among his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein's ties to powerful figures and withheld details about his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
Epstein was a New York financier who fraternized with some of the most powerful men in the country.
The victims asked to pass
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 met Epstein.
After the vote, they stood to applaud lawmakers from the House public gallery, some of them crying and hugging each other.
Despite his change of position on the bill, Trump remains angry about the attention paid to the Epstein matter. On Tuesday, he called a journalist who asked about it in the Oval Office a “terrible person” and said the television network the journalist works for should have its license revoked.
“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” the Republican president told reporters while receiving a visit from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I kicked him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
The White House was taken by surprise
The White House was surprised by how quickly the measure passed Congress, having expected it to take longer in the Senate, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The fight over the Epstein documents has taken a toll on Trump's public approval, which fell to its lowest point this year in a Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Monday, which found that only one in five voters overall approved of his handling of the matter. Among Republicans, only 44% thought Trump was handling the situation well.
Trump socialized and partied with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s before what he calls a breakup, but the old friendship has become a rare soft spot for the president with his supporters.
“Please stop making this political, this is not about you, President Trump,” Jena-Lisa Jones, who said Epstein sexually abused her when she was 14, said at a news conference outside the Capitol a few hours before the vote. “I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national disgrace.”
Trump has said he had no connection to Epstein's crimes and has begun calling the issue a “Democratic hoax,” even as some Republicans were among the loudest voices calling for the release of records from Epstein's criminal investigations.
Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who led the effort to force the vote, accused the Justice Department on 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'll know when there are men, rich men, in handcuffs, being taken to jail. And until then, this is still a cover-up.”
Greene says she was pressured to withdraw support
Trump's opposition soured relations with one of his strongest Republican supporters in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has expressed anger that the Justice Department has not revealed more details about Epstein. She said Trump pressured her to withdraw her support for the resolution and publicly called her a traitor after she doubled down.
She joined Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna on Capitol Hill before voting in favor of the resolution, telling reporters: “A traitor is an American who serves foreign countries and himself. A patriot is an American who serves the United States of America, and Americans like the women who stand behind me.”
Epstein pleaded guilty to felony prostitution in the state of Florida in 2008 and served 13 months in prison. The US Department of Justice charged him with sex trafficking of minors in 2019. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to those charges before his death.
