House passes Epstein File Transparency Act, sends bill to Senate
The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would require the federal government to release as much information about Jeffrey Epstein as possible.
WASHINGTON – Government records about suspected sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein are several steps closer to being released.
The House of Representatives on November 18 passed the Epstein File Transparency Act, which requires the federal government to release as much information about Epstein as possible. Shortly after, the Senate also agreed to pass the bill.
President Donald Trump, who had ties to Mr. Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s but ultimately fell out with the disgraced financier, said he would sign the bill once it reaches his desk. Here’s what you need to know:
House passes Epstein bill
The House passed the bill on Tuesday by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 427-1.
All Democrats and nearly all Republicans voted in favor of the bill. The lone Republican, Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, voted against it.
“I said ‘no’ to this bill in principle from the beginning,” Higgins said in a statement after the vote. He argued that the vote does not adequately address “the privacy of victims and other Americans who are named but not involved in the crime.” He asked the Senate to add an amendment to address those concerns and said he would vote in favor of the amendment if it were introduced in the House.
“If enacted in its current form, this type of wholesale disclosure of criminal investigative files to a fanatical media will undoubtedly harm innocent people,” Higgins said in a statement. “It’s not my vote.”
Republican lawmakers, including Mr. Johnson and Mr. Trump, have also expressed concerns about protecting the privacy of victims and of whistleblowers and informants whose names may be named in the files that are expected to be released.
But the bill’s bipartisan authors, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), emphasized that the bill does not single out victims. The bill includes certain provisions that would allow the Attorney General to withhold or redact records containing personal information or other sensitive data.
Senate passes bill
Hours after the House passed the bill, the Senate quickly approved it and sent it to the President’s desk.
The bill passed through a streamlined procedural process known as unanimity. House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made the request and said he would take action even before the bill passed the House.
“The American people have been waiting for this for a long time,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “Once the House introduces the Epstein bill, the Senate should pass it without delay without delay and send it to the President’s desk for signature.”
Will Trump sign the bill?
President Trump said he would sign the bill if it passes both houses of Congress, reversing his previous stance on the bill.
President Trump called the incident “an Epstein hoax.” He recently warned Republicans against supporting the release of further documents after House Democrats released multiple emails mentioning Epstein’s name.
Democratic lawmakers last week released messages from Epstein in which Trump allegedly “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims and “knew the girls.”
But days later, President Trump suggested he would sign the bill once it was on his desk, sharing on social media that he had “nothing to hide.”
“It’s time to move on from the Democratic hoaxes perpetrated by radical left-wing lunatics to distract from the Republican Party’s great successes, including the recent Democratic ‘shutdown’ victory,” President Trump said.
