Republicans plan to vote on a bill to release the Epstein files on Tuesday afternoon after President Donald Trump changed his tune from aggressively campaigning against the bill despite continuing to claim it’s a distraction from Democrats.
Survivors of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein met on Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning after Trump essentially gave House Republicans the green light to vote for the full release of the files. In a Truth Social post, Trump said the GOP should do so “because we have nothing to hide.”
At the press conference, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), co-author of the legislation, said, “It’s going to get overwhelming support in the House. It should go straight to the Senate, and it should be signed, no amendments, no adding loopholes. Justice is long overdue.”
Khanna led the press conference with Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). They expressed gratitude for any support they could get from the House speaker and the president, but emphasized that actions mean more than words.
“We’re done with words,” Massie told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday ahead of the vote. “We’re just looking at actions.”
Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) have leaned into the notion that the vote on the Epstein bill is a political ploy by Democrats, as the pair continue to seek to move past the matter. Johnson said Tuesday morning, ahead of the vote, that Democrats are “forcing a political show vote on the Epstein files.”
Trump echoed Johnson, writing Sunday night, “It’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown.’”
Trump’s green light comes as the White House, House GOP leadership, and the Justice Department have sought to move past the Epstein files following public fallout from the department announcing after the July 4 weekend that it had no plans to make any further documents available and affirmed that Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges related to the sex trafficking of minors.
The president and his allies promised on the 2024 campaign trail that releasing the files would be a top priority. However, the administration’s decision to back off both angered its conservative GOP base and prompted backlash from Democrats, who accused the administration of protecting Trump from any fallout from the files.
The argument over the files took a sharp turn into reality last week when Massie and Khanna hit the 218th signature threshold on their discharge petition with the swearing in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) after 50 days. The petition had been sitting at 217 signatures, one short of the ability to call a bill up for a vote, and has been a thorn in the sides of Johnson and Trump.
Grijalva joined all Democrats in signing it, as well as Massie and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), and Greene. Last week, the White House began lobbying Republicans to remove their signatures from the petition before it reached the 218 threshold, which ultimately failed.
“They didn’t take us seriously over at the executive branch or in the Senate, because they always thought they could flip one of these women,” Massie said at the press conference. “They could convince them or control them or intimidate them into taking their names off of this petition, but they did not succeed.”
Johnson is not required to call a vote until early December, as he has seven legislative days for the petition to “ripen.” However, the House is expected to vote on the legislation Tuesday afternoon ahead of the seven-day mark. The Epstein Files Transparency Act would require the DOJ to make all relevant files publicly available, with victim protection.
Eyes will be on House Republicans to see who votes for or against the legislation. Massive support is expected following Trump’s backing, but it’s unclear how leadership will vote thus far.
“You’ll know tomorrow,” Johnson told reporters ahead of the votes on Monday night.
The Epstein files have caused a rupture within Republican ranks, not only with GOP right-wing influencers and votes, but also with lawmakers. Greene, a once adamant and vocal supporter of Trump, has been in the spotlight for several weeks for publicly going against the president regarding the files.
The pair’s argument has gone so far that Trump rescinded his endorsement of Greene on Friday, dubbing her “Marjorie Traitor Greene.”
Greene pushed back at the press conference, saying, “A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves.”
House passage does not guarantee the Senate will schedule a vote on the bill. However, some Republicans believe that the more support shown on the floor, the more pressure will be on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to call a vote on the measure.
The Senate previously voted on the matter after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) forced a floor vote on the Epstein files using a procedural tactic. Schumer’s effort failed, with the Republican-led Senate voting 51-49 to table it.
