The US House of Representatives and Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would compel the Department of Justice (DOJ) to make all case files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein public as soon as it receives it from the chamber. John Thune, the majority leader, said it will happen on Wednesday.
This was a remarkable show of support for an endeavour that had been fighting for months to overcome resistance from Republican leaders and President Donald Trump.
The bill will be sent to Trump, who said that he would sign it, a dramatic change in his stance, and the Senate won’t need to take any more action.
The decisive, bipartisan work in Congress on Tuesday further demonstrated the growing pressure on lawmakers and the Trump administration to comply with long-standing demands that the DOJ release its Epstein case files. The wealthy financier died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on allegations that he trafficked and sexually abused underage girls.
The bill’s passing marked a turning point in the years-long fight for accountability for survivors of Epstein’s abuse.
The bill was opposed by just one member of Congress. The single “nay” vote in the House’s 427-1 vote was Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, who is a fervent Trump supporter. He expressed concern that the measure would result in the disclosure of details on innocent individuals who were mentioned in the federal inquiry.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene stood with some of the abuse survivors outside the Capitol Tuesday morning. “These women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have to fight. And they did it by banding together and never giving up,” she said.
“That’s what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of the United States, in order to make this vote happen today,” the Georgia Republican remarked.
The bill mandates that all correspondence and data pertaining to Epstein, as well as any details on the inquiry into his death in federal prison, be made public within 30 days. Information pertaining to Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations could be redacted by the Justice Department, but not information that would cause “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
Thousands of pages of emails and other documents from Epstein’s estate were made public by the House Oversight Committee’s probe even before the bill was passed on Tuesday.
These documents show Epstein’s ties to influential political figures, Wall Street insiders, world leaders, and even Trump. King Charles III stripped his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence—Royal Lodge after pressure mounted on him to act regarding the latter’s relation with Epstein.