U.S. lawmakers voted overwhelmingly on November 18th to release government data on the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after President Donald Trump dropped his opposition to opening the books on a scandal that has roiled politics, law enforcement, and the country’s elite.
While initially the president had pressured allies in Congress not to support making the material public, the President subsequently changed position over the weekend. Trump posted on social media that Republicans should vote to release the files “because we have nothing to hide.”
Congress approved the Epstein Files Transparency Act almost unanimously—compelling publication of unclassified documents detailing the investigation into the disgraced financier’s business operations and death in prison, which was ruled a suicide.
The bill passed the House earlier on November 18th with just one dissenter out of 428 members voting, and the Senate agreed to rubber-stamp and send on the text straight to the White House, without a hand-count vote, as soon as it arrives from the lower chamber.
After multiple attempts by Republican leaders to block the vote, all Democrats and four Republicans signed a “discharge petition”—an extraordinary procedure forcing the bill to the House floor against the wishes of leadership. Lawmakers say the public deserves answers in a case with over 1,000 alleged victims.
Trump says the files will expose powerful Democrats’ connections to Epstein, but the president also appears in emails thrown up over the course of a years-long acquaintance with the man alleged to have supplied underage girls to rich and influential men.
“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump told reporters on November 18th at an Oval Office event with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
