The House on Tuesday finally voted to force President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files—the culmination of a monthslong effort by Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers who want the public to see the evidence the government had on now-deceased accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The vote was 427-1, with Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana voting against it, after Trump reluctantly dropped his opposition to the legislation and gave his blessing to his GOP minions to vote yes.
‘Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) first introduced the bill in July, which instructs the Department of Justice to release unclassified documents relating to Epstein, Epstein’s death in a federal prison, and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell—who is currently serving time in federal prison for her related crimes.
However, Trump was adamant that the files not be released, and spent months attacking Massie and the Democrats who want the files out in the open. In fact, Trump took a low blow at Massie, criticizing the Kentucky Republican for remarrying after his wife unexpectedly died last year.
Related | Trump is definitely not mad about the vote to release the Epstein files
In order to appease Dear Leader, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to put the legislation up for a vote on the floor, making bullshit excuses about how releasing the documents would hurt Epstein’s victims—even though the victims had been begging for the files to be released.
In order to bypass Johnson, Massie and Khanna resorted to using a procedural move called a discharge petition—in which a majority of the members of the House can force a bill to the floor over the objections of the speaker.
But Johnson spent months trying to block that, too. He refused to seat newly elected Arizona Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva for nearly two months—as her signature was the majority-maker for the petition.
Once Johnson finally swore Grijalva in, the discharge petition was successful. And after it became clear that hundreds of GOP lawmakers were going to vote for the legislation on the floor, Trump did an about-face and told Republicans they were free to vote yes on the bill.
Related | Epstein survivor calls Trump a ‘national embarrassment’
However, Johnson on Tuesday said that while he was going to vote for the bill, he is hopeful the Senate will amend the legislation that passes in order to allow the Trump administration to continue to hold back documents or evidence that would implicate anyone in Epstein’s crimes.
“When this moves forward in the process—if and when it is processed in the Senate, which is no certainty—they will take the time methodically to do what we have not been allowed to do in the House. To amend this discharge petition,” Johnson said Tuesday at a news conference.
It’s the latest cowardly move from the spineless GOP leader.
“If he actually wanted the Epstein files released, he could have offered his suggestions four months ago and brought it to the floor,” Massie told reporters on Tuesday about Johnson. “Instead he … spread lies about our legislation he now supports because the president told him to.”
What’s more, the legislation shouldn’t even be necessary, as Trump can just release the files of his own volition—something he refuses to do, likely because his name is littered throughout the documents.
Ultimately, Trump and the GOP’s efforts to block the files from being released have been incredibly unpopular.
And Epstein’s own victims slammed Trump at a news conference on Tuesday for not being transparent—as he once promised to be.
Jena-Lisa Jones, an Epstein survivor who first met the well-connected financier when she was just 14, spoke at a news conference and had some blunt words for the president:
Now that checks and balances of our democracy have worked and the bill is getting passed to release the files, we are hearing the administration say they intend to investigate various Democrats who were friends with Epstein. I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political. … I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment. It is time to take the honest, moral ground and support the release of these files, not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein’s friends were, who covered for him, what financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue, who knew what he was doing but was too much of a coward to do anything about it.
Given that Johnson is already laying the groundwork for the Republican-controlled Senate to water down the legislation, Jones and her fellow survivors may be waiting a lot longer for the justice they crave.
