After months of stonewalling, the House on Tuesday voted 427-1 to force the release of the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. But the celebration was short-lived. As soon as the bill moved to the Senate, the talk shifted to how much Republicans there may try to block or heavily redact before anything ever reaches the public.
A dozen Epstein victims and family members, including Virginia Giuffre’s brother, watched the House vote from the front row. Once the tally crossed the supermajority threshold, some quietly walked out — they’d waited years for at least this moment of accountability.
Earlier in the day, several of Epstein’s victims stood outside the Capitol urging passage. They didn’t hold back on their criticism of President Donald Trump, calling out what they saw as his mishandling of the entire matter and pressing lawmakers to “vote yes” despite White House pressure.
That pressure had been real. House Speaker Mike Johnson spent the summer trying to dodge a vote altogether. In late July, he abruptly dismissed the House a day early rather than let the Epstein bill hit the floor. It echoed another long delay — the 50-plus days the House sat idle during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which postponed the swearing-in of Democrat Adelita Grijalva. After the shutdown finally ended, Grijalva became the crucial 218th signature on a discharge petition that forced Johnson’s hand.
The bill, co-sponsored by Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna, was suddenly unavoidable.
On Tuesday morning, Johnson still slammed the legislation as a “political exercise” with “serious deficiencies,” though he said he would vote for it and hoped the Senate would make changes. And he made sure to defend Trump, saying “[Trump] has nothing to hide.”
Trump had privately pushed Republicans to kill the measure. According to multiple sources, he even tried persuading Rep. Lauren Boebert inside the White House Situation Room not to support the discharge petition that forced Tuesday’s vote. But when it became obvious GOP momentum was breaking toward transparency, Trump switched course over the weekend, telling Republicans to vote yes because “we have nothing to hide.”
The measure — the Epstein Files Transparency Act — requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all “unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” tied to Epstein. That includes federal files on Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and any other individuals referenced in their “criminal activities, civil settlements, immunity, plea agreements or investigatory proceedings.” Victims’ names would be shielded, and anything that contains child sex abuse material would be withheld.
Supporters say the vote will be remembered long after the political noise fades, warning that “the record of this vote will last longer than Donald Trump’s presidency.”
But here’s the catch: even if the Senate passes the bill, and even if Trump signs it, the public may not get the full truth. DOJ sources say anything tied to ongoing investigations — or anything the White House claims under executive privilege — would likely remain hidden. And Senate Republicans are already signaling they may push for broad redactions.
So while the House may have forced the issue, the real battle is just beginning. The Senate now holds the power to decide whether the public sees the Epstein files — or a heavily sanitized version that leaves the biggest questions unanswered.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, but the fight over what he left behind — and who else may be implicated — is far from over.
