House votes 427-1 to release Epstein files in remarkable rebuke to Trump

When a small group of bipartisan House lawmakers filed a petition in July to maneuver House Speaker Mike Johnson’s control over bills that reach the House floor, it seemed like a far-fetched effort — especially since Trump urged his supporters to dismiss the order as a “sham.”

But both Trump and 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 would sign it if it also passes the Senate. Moments after the House vote, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his chamber would act quickly on the bill.

The bill was approved in the House by a vote of 427-1, with the lone “no” vote coming from Rep. Clay Higgins, a Republican from Louisiana who is a staunch Trump supporter. He said in a statement that he opposes the bill because it could release information about innocent people mentioned in the federal investigation.

The critical bipartisan action in congress on Tuesday also demonstrated mounting pressure on lawmakers and the Trump administration to meet long-sought demands that the Justice Department release case files on Epstein, a well-connected financier who committed suicide in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges of sexually assaulting and trafficking underage girls.

“These women fought the most terrible fight that no woman should ever have to fight,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said as she stood with some survivors of abuse outside the Capitol on Tuesday morning. “And they did it by sticking together and never giving up.”

“This is what we did by fighting hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of the United States, to get this vote today,” added Greene, a Georgia Republican and longtime Trump loyalist.

Passage of the bill would be a pivotal moment in a years-long campaign by survivors for accountability for Epstein’s abuse and a reckoning with the extent to which law enforcement officials failed to act under multiple presidential administrations.

A separate investigation by the House Oversight Committee uncovered thousands of pages of emails and other documents from Epstein’s estate, showing his connections to world leaders, Wall Street power brokers, influential political figures and Trump himself. In the UK, King Charles III stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after coming under pressure to act on his relationship with Epstein.

The bill requires the release within 30 days of all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. It would allow the Justice Department to redact information related to Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations, but not information due to “embarrassment, reputational damage, or political sensitivity.”

Trump retracts Epstein files

Trump said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, but tried for months to get around disclosure demands.

However, many in the Republican base continued to demand the release of the files. Adding to that pressure, survivors of Epstein’s abuse rallied outside the Capitol on Tuesday morning. They wore jackets to protect against the November cold, uploaded photos of themselves when they were teenagers, and told their stories of abuse.

“We were exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the politics around it,” one survivor said.

Another, Gina Lisa Jones, said she voted for Trump and had a message for the president: “I’m begging you, Donald Trump, please stop making this political.”

The group of women also met with Johnson and rallied outside the Capitol in September, but had to wait several months before voting.

That’s because Johnson kept the House closed for legislative work for nearly two months and refused to swear in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona during the government shutdown. After winning a special election on September 23, Grijalva pledged to cast the decisive 218th vote on the Epstein Files bill. But only after she was sworn in last week was she able to sign her name to the impeachment petition to give her majority support in the 435-member House.

It quickly became clear that the bill would pass, and both Johnson and Trump began to back away. Trump said on Sunday that Republicans should vote in favor of the bill.

However, Greene told reporters that Trump’s decision to fight the bill was a betrayal of his “Make America Great Again” political movement.

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

How Johnson is handling the bill

Instead of waiting until next week for the Brexit position to officially take effect, Johnson held the vote under a procedure that requires a two-thirds majority.

But Johnson also spent a morning news conference listing the problems he sees with the legislation. He said the bill could have unintended consequences by revealing parts of federal investigations that usually remain classified, including information about victims.

“This is a crude and clear political exercise,” Johnson said.

Despite this, he voted in favor of the bill. He explained: “None of us wants to go on the record and be accused in any way of not adhering to the utmost transparency.”

Meanwhile, House Democrats celebrated the vote as a rare victory. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it a “complete and complete surrender.”

The Senate plans to move quickly

Even after the House approved the bill, Johnson pressed the Senate to amend the bill to protect the information of “victims and whistleblowers.” But Senate Majority Leader John Thune showed little interest in the idea, saying he doubted it would be “on the table.”

Thune said he would quickly evaluate senators’ views on the bill to see if there were any objections. He said the bill could be introduced in the Senate Tuesday evening and almost certainly by the end of the week.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also indicated he would try to pass the bill on Tuesday.

“The American people have waited long enough,” he added.

Meanwhile, the bipartisan duo that sponsored the bill, Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., warned senators against doing anything that would “screw it,” saying they would face the same public uproar that forced both Trump and Johnson to back down.

“We’ve unnecessarily delayed this for four months,” Massey said, adding that those raising issues about the bill “are afraid people will be embarrassed. Well, that’s the point here.”

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti, Matt Brown, Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.