Women who say they were abused by disgraced financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein raise their hands as attorney Bradley Edwards speaks at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on September 3, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump abruptly changed his mind Sunday night, urging House Republicans to vote on a bill that would force the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting federal trial.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide and it is time to walk away from this Democratic hoax perpetrated by far-left lunatics to distract from the great success of the Republican Party, including our recent victory in the Democratic shutdown.”
Trump continued in his signature style of arbitrary capital letters: “The Justice Department has already given the public tens of thousands of pages on the Epstein issue, is investigating various Democratic activists (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have everything it is legally entitled to, I don’t care!”
The House of Representatives is expected to vote on Tuesday following a bipartisan vote Dismissal application collected 218 signatures last week, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana to sign The invoice to have their say that would force the DOJ to release investigative materials on Epstein.
It’s unclear whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would bring the legislation to a vote in the Republican-controlled chamber.
Thomas Massie of Kentucky supported the petition along with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif. Three other House Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, signed along with all Democrats.
The House’s newest Democrat, Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, became the 218th signature after her sworn Wednesday from Johnson, after weeks in which the chamber did not meet. Johnson refused to be sworn in at Grijalva until the government was closed, breaking a precedent for swearing in up-to-date members when the chamber is not present.
Johnson was not in favor of a vote, instead citing the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s ongoing investigation into the Epstein documents.
Committee Republicans released more than 20,000 pages of Epstein’s emails on Wednesday, many of which included Trump’s name.
The committee, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., revealed the immense trove of emails from Epstein’s estate according to the panel’s Democrats released A selection of correspondence that included the claim that Trump “knew about the girls because he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
Epstein was referring to Ghislaine Maxwell, his co-conspirator who was later convicted of federal sex trafficking charges.
Emails and subpoenas
Trump denies any involvement in Epstein’s alleged crimes and has stated that he kicked Epstein out of his private club Mar-a-Lago in Florida because Epstein had poached adolescent female employees from the club. Epstein was sentenced in Florida in 2008 for soliciting minors for sex.
Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, who surrounded himself with the opulent and powerful.
Committee Republicans did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment Wednesday about how long the committee has had the emails and when the data dump occurred.
The committee has Lower store garden several people connected to the investigation, including Maxwell, several former U.S. attorneys general and former President Bill Clinton, as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump sent Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is also the president’s former personal defense attorney, to interview Maxwell at a Florida prison in July.
Accordingly TranscriptsMaxwell told Blanche that she “never saw the President in any inappropriate environment. The President was never inappropriate with anyone. When I was with him, he was a gentleman in every way.”
Soon there was Maxwell moved was sent to a minimum-security prison in Texas, and House Democrats claimed this month that it was a whistleblower revealed The convicted sex offender was “pampered” by the warden. House Democrats also claimed the whistleblower revealed that Maxwell was preparing a commutation request to Trump to release her 20-year prison sentence.
FBI memo
The FBI issued a report in July memo He said the Justice Department would not release any further information about the government’s sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
The announcement set off a firestorm of calls over the summer to release all investigative material, even among Trump’s supporters in Congress and far-right media influencers. including Megyn Kelly and the overdue Charlie Kirk.
Trump promised during the election campaign to release the files.
Since the FBI memo, Trump’s past relationship with Epstein has come under scrutiny.
The president sued the Wall Street Journal over its coverage of a 50th anniversary Birthday card Trump is said to have given Epstein. The card featured a cryptic message and a scrawl of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature mimicking pubic hair. Trump denies that he created and signed the birthday doodle.
The journal too reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi informed the president in May that his name appeared in the Epstein case files. The context in which his name appeared is unclear.
Trump has denied all reports.
A series In the Miami Herald in 2018, journalist Julie K. Brown drew widespread attention to Epstein’s crimes and Trump’s 2017 appointment as labor secretary of former Miami federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who had struck a deal in 2008 to end a federal investigation into Epstein.
