THE United States Congress has voted overwhelmingly to compel the release of unclassified Justice Department records relating to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, following months of resistance from President Donald Trump, who abruptly reversed his stance only days before the vote.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that the House of Representatives approved the measure by 427–1, sending the resolution to the Republican-controlled Senate, which swiftly endorsed it. The bill is expected to reach Trump for signature imminently.
A senior White House official confirmed that Trump intends to sign it once it arrives at his desk.
The controversy surrounding Epstein has dogged Trump politically, in part because he has repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories about the financier’s death and alleged connections to prominent figures.
Epstein died in 2019 in a Manhattan jail, a death ruled suicide, though many of Trump’s supporters remain convinced that his administration concealed key details. Epstein, a well-connected New York financier, had socialised with some of the country’s most powerful men.
Ahead of the House vote, around two dozen women who say they survived Epstein’s abuse gathered outside the US Capitol with a group of bipartisan lawmakers, urging Congress to release the files.
Holding photographs of themselves at the ages they said they first encountered Epstein, they watched the vote from the public gallery and later applauded and embraced one another, some in tears.
Despite Trump’s reversal, the president has remained visibly frustrated by the renewed scrutiny. When questioned by a journalist in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he accused the reporter of being a “terrible person” and suggested the television network employing him should lose its broadcasting licence. “I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump told reporters while hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”
White House aides were reportedly surprised by the speed with which the measure advanced, having assumed it would face delays in the Senate.
The dispute has taken a toll on Trump’s public standing: a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday found his approval rating at its lowest level this year, with only one in five voters supporting his handling of the Epstein issue. Among Republicans, just 44 per cent said he had dealt with it well.
Trump had socialised with Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s before what he describes as a falling-out.
The past association has become an unusual political vulnerability among his base. One survivor, Jena-Lisa Jones, told reporters outside the Capitol: “Please stop making this political, it is not about you, President Trump. I voted for you, but your behaviour on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”
Although Trump has dismissed the furore as a “Democratic hoax”, several Republicans have been among the strongest advocates for the records’ release.
Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who led the push for the vote, accused the Justice Department of “protecting pedophiles and sex traffickers.”
He added: “How will we know if this bill has been successful? We will know when there are men, rich men, in handcuffs, being perp-walked to the jail. And until then, this is still a cover-up.”
Tensions around the matter have also strained Trump’s relationship with one of his staunchest allies, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. She said Trump pressured her to retract her support for the resolution and even labelled her a traitor after she stood firm.
Appearing with Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna before the vote, she said: “A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America, and Americans like the women standing behind me.”
Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state prostitution offence in 2008, serving 13 months in jail. He was charged by the US Justice Department with sex trafficking of minors in 2019 and had pleaded not guilty prior to his death. - November 19, 2025
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