House poised to pass a bill to force the release of the Epstein files in a bipartisan vote

WASHINGTON — The House is poised to vote overwhelmingly Tuesday for legislation to compel the Justice Department to release all its records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a major victory for the lawmakers in both parties who’ve been leading the push for months.

The measure, which last week secured enough bipartisan support to head straight to the House floor, got another boost over the weekend, when President Donald Trump reversed his position and urged Republicans to support it.

The bipartisan duo who co-authored the legislation — Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif. — are working to secure a veto-proof majority in the House, and they predict that as many as 100 Republicans could vote for it. The number could climb even higher now that Trump has given his blessing.

“Almost everybody” will vote for it, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told NBC News, adding that leaders aren’t telling members how to vote.

Such a lopsided vote would put enormous pressure on the Republican-controlled Senate to act on the measure.

“Just thinking politically, [Republicans] need to look past 2028 and wonder if they want this on their record for the rest of their political career,” Massie recently told reporters.

Khanna said he and Massie will hold a news conference with Epstein survivors Tuesday morning, when they will ask for Trump to meet with the survivors.

GOP leaders in the Senate say they are all for transparency when it comes to Epstein, but they haven’t revealed whether they’ll bring the bill to the floor.

“We’ll see if they send something to the Senate. And if they do, we’ll take a look at that,” Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “But we want transparency and accountability.”

Momentum on the Epstein discharge petition was building in the House, which allowed rank-and-file members to circumvent leadership and force a vote.

All House Democrats were on board, and after Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., was sworn in and became the 218th lawmaker to sign the discharge petition to force a vote, a deluge of Republicans began announcing they would vote in favor of it once it came to the floor.

Trump and the White House had worked behind the scenes to stop the effort, trying to pressure a handful of GOP women to drop off the petition. On Friday, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to prominent Democrats and financial institutions.

But with the writing on the wall, Trump abruptly reversed course Sunday night, posting on Truth Social that House Republicans should vote for the bill.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Trump, who had supported releasing the Epstein files before his re-election last year, vowed to sign the legislation should it reach his desk, which he said would allow the GOP to turn the page on the nagging issue and focus on the economy.

“Some of the people that we mentioned are being looked at very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, but they were with him all the time — I wasn’t. I wasn’t at all,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“What I just don’t want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party, including the fact that the Democrats are totally blamed for the shutdown,” he continued.

A conservative Trump ally in the House told NBC News that Republicans have been widely frustrated with the White House’s dismissive handling of the Epstein saga and have privately encouraged it to shift strategy — which was communicated as recently as Friday, days before Trump flipped on the issue.

The White House was also warned that there would be mass Republican defections on the House floor.

The Justice Department has already turned over tens of thousands of documents from the Epstein investigation to the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting its own probe and has made many of those records public.

In addition, Democrats on the Oversight Committee released a series of emails last week from Epstein to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell and journalist Michael Wolff that refer to Trump, which Epstein’s estate turned over in response to a subpoena. In one 2019 email, Epstein wrote of Trump, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” but he didn’t accuse Trump of any wrongdoing.

Trump has consistently denied involvement in any of Epstein’s crimes. The two men had socialized in the 1980s and the 1990s, including at a 1992 party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where video shows them discussing women. But Trump and Epstein had a falling-out in the 2000s, when Trump accused Epstein of hiring away girls and young women from his resort’s spa. Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.

In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state charges of soliciting prostitution with a minor. In July 2019, the Justice Department charged him with sex trafficking of minors. A month later, authorities said, Epstein killed himself in his jail cell while he was awaiting trial.

The House’s Epstein bill would require the attorney general to release in a searchable and downloadable format “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” related to Epstein and his co-conspirator Maxwell, flight logs or travel records, people and entities connected with Epstein and internal emails, notes and other internal Justice Department communications.

The legislation says Bondi may withhold or redact any information that identifies victims or would jeopardize an active federal investigation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has argued for months that the Epstein legislation isn’t needed because the Oversight Committee has been investigating the matter and releasing thousands of documents to the public. He dodged questions Monday about Trump’s about-face and his conversations with the president.

“He’s never had anything to hide. He and I had the same concern — that we wanted to ensure that victims of these heinous crimes are completely protected from disclosure, those who don’t want their names out there,” Johnson told reporters. “And I’m not sure the discharge petition does that, and that’s part of the problem.”