Epstein files — WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday encouraged House Republicans to vote in favor of releasing files connected to the Jeffrey Epstein case, a move that comes after weeks of resistance as a House floor vote approaches on Nov. 17, 2025.
“We have nothing to hide,” Trump wrote in a late-Sunday social media post, simply appending, “I DON’T CARE! … get BACK ON POINT,” The Associated Press reported.
The House will vote this week after a discharge petition garnered 218 signatures, marking the push for the release of the Epstein files. The bill will be brought to the floor by Speaker Mike Johnson, according to CBS News.
The legislation would require the Justice Department to make public records and communications involving Epstein, with specified redactions for victims or ongoing investigations, its backers say. The White House and some GOP leaders had, at times, been inclined toward committee-led releases.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., one of the bill’s authors, said there could be “100 or more” Republican votes, and he aims for a veto-proof majority, according to the AP report.
Trump’s turnabout comes after weeks of intraparty fighting, including a very public falling out with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., over the latter’s embrace of the papers. The president had previously belittled the controversy as a distraction before he threw his support behind a full House vote.
Tensions simmered over the weekend, with Massie cautioning that Trump’s alternative rhetoric about investigating Democrats’ links to Epstein might be a “smokescreen” intended to stall disclosures and calling for his colleagues to support the release regardless, according to the Guardian.
Publishing the Epstein files is an accountability measure that survivors and the public demand, advocates say. Many are planning to be at the Capitol this week when members of Congress vote, lawmakers have said.
Context: New pressure on a year-old trail. The Miami Herald’s 2018-19 “Perversion of Justice” investigation revived scrutiny over Epstein’s nonprosecution deal in 2008 and helped lead to new federal charges before his jail death last year.
In 2019, a federal judge determined that prosecutors violated the rights of victims by not telling them about the plea pact, an example of long-standing transparency lapses that the House bill is intended to remedy.” — Axios.
What’s next: a House vote that could send the bill to an uncertain Senate, where proponents hope bipartisan support will create pressure. Survivors and sponsors say a timely (read: uncavated by politics) release is the only way speculation as to what exactly was in Epstein’s files might end, and the truth of it be fully surfaced.
