US House and Senate votes overwhelmingly to force release of Epstein files

Both the House and Senate acted decisively to pass a bill to force the justice department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The move is a remarkable display of approval for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from US president Donald Trump and Republican party leadership.

When a small bipartisan group of House legislators introduced a petition in July to manoeuvre around speaker Mike Johnson’s control of which bills reach the House floor, it appeared a hopeful effort – especially as Mr Trump urged his supporters to dismiss the matter as a “hoax”.

But both Mr Trump and Mr Johnson failed in their efforts to prevent the vote.

Now the president has bowed to the growing momentum behind the bill and even said he will sign it.

Just hours after the House passed the bill, the Senate agreed to pass it with unanimous consent once it is sent to the body.

The bill passed the house by 427-1, with the only no vote coming from Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who is a fervent supporter of Mr Trump. He also chairs a subcommittee that initiated a subpoena on the Justice Department for the Epstein files.

The vote on Tuesday further showed the pressure mounting on members of US congress and the Trump administration to meet long-held demands that the justice department release its case files on Epstein, a well-connected financier who killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said as she stood with some of the abuse survivors outside the Capitol on 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.

“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.”

Ms Greene is a Georgia Republican and longtime Trump loyalist.

A separate investigation conducted by the House Oversight Committee has released thousands of pages of emails and other documents from Epstein’s estate, showing his connections to global leaders, Wall Street powerbrokers, influential political figures and Mr Trump himself.

Pushing for more accountability, the survivors of Epstein’s abuse cast the current effort in Congress as a step towards accountability for Epstein’s crimes after years of government failure under multiple presidential administrations.

Mr Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, but tried for months to move past the demands for disclosure.

On Monday, he told reporters that Epstein was connected to more Democrats and that he did not want the Epstein files to “detract from the great success of the Republican Party”.

Many in the Republican base have continued to demand the release of the files. Adding to that pressure, several survivors of Epstein’s abuse rallied outside the Capitol on Tuesday morning. Bundled in jackets against the November chill and holding photos of themselves as teenagers, they recounted their stories of abuse.

“We are exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the political conflicts that surround it,” said Jena-Lisa Jones, one of the survivors.

She added that she had voted for Mr Trump, but had a message for the American president: “I beg you Donald Trump, please stop making this political.”

The group of women also met with Mr Johnson and rallied outside the Capitol in September, but have had to wait months for the vote.

This is because Mr Johnson kept the House closed for legislative business for nearly two months and also refused to swear-in Democratic representative Adelita Grijalva of Arizona during the government shutdown.

After winning a special election on September 23, Ms Grijalva had pledged to provide the crucial 218th vote to the petition for the Epstein files bill.

But only after she was sworn into office last week could she sign her name to the discharge petition to give it majority support in the 435-member House.

It quickly became apparent the bill would pass, and both Mr Johnson and Mr Trump began to fold. Mr Trump on Sunday said Republicans should vote for the bill.

Yet Ms Greene told reporters that Mr Trump’s decision to fight the bill had betrayed his Make America Great Again political movement.

“Watching this turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart,” she said.