The US House votes 427-1 to compel the justice department to release all of its Jeffrey Epstein files
The bipartisan bill will now have to pass a Senate vote – which could come as early as this evening – before heading to President Donald Trump's desk to be signed into law
Earlier, survivors of Epstein spoke at a news conference at the US Capitol – Annie Farmer says they have suffered "institutional betrayal" for years
Speaking alongside survivors, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hits out at her former ally Trump and says the Epstein issue has "ripped Maga apart" (Trump's Make America Great Again movement)
Donald Trump called for his own party to vote to release the files, after weeks spent claiming the vote was a distraction led by the Democratic Party
It comes after more than 20,000 pages of documents, some mentioning Trump, were the latest tranche to be released last week
Trump has previously said he cut ties with Epstein many years ago, and he has always denied any link to Epstein's sex abuse and trafficking
Edited by Caitlin Wilson and Oliver O'Connell with Ana Faguy reporting from Capitol Hill
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Epstein files: What happens now that the House has voted?
With the Epstein Files Transparency Act bill now passed by the House of Representatives, it will head to the US Senate to face a vote by Congress' upper chamber.
Senator Majority Leader John Thune has said the Senate will take up the bill "fairly quickly", and could pass it by later today.
He added that he does not expect any changes to the bill passed by the House. If the Senate does change the bill, it will need to be reconciled with the version passed by the House.
Trump, after lobbying against the release of the Epstein files flipped his position, now says he will sign it into law. Once signed, the justice department has a deadline of 30 days to release all of the Epstein files.
Certain sensitive files relating to underage victims or ongoing inquiries may not be released.
For context: the Department of Justice can choose to release the files at any point, regardless of the bill now making its way through Congress.
Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill
Just when all of us following the Epstein vote on the Hill thought we were done for the night, there has been a new twist.
We expected the Senate to take up the legislation at some point this week, because of the Thanksgiving holiday next week. But we didn't expect Senate Majority Leader John Thune to suggest – as he just did on the floor – that he may bring up the legislation for vote tonight, without trying to make any amendments to it.
"I think when a bill comes out of the House 427-to-1 and the president said he was going to sign it, I'm not sure that amending it is in the cards," Thune told reporters.
If the bill is brought for a vote tonight, it could be done as Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested, by unanimous consent.
"We have an opportunity to get this bill done today and have it on the president's desk to be signed into law tonight," Schumer said.
The process of ordering the justice department to release the Epstein files could face an additional hurdle, even if it passes the Senate after today's vote in the House.
Several Republican lawmakers who have supported the bill have expressed concerns that Trump's order to the justice department to investigate Epstein's ties to prominent Democrats could slow the release of the files.
"I'm concerned that now he's opening a flurry of investigations, and I believe they may be trying to use those investigations as a predicate for not releasing the files. That's my concern," said Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who spoke alongside survivors of Epstein's abuse this morning.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has also said the documents may be "tied up" in Trump's investigation into Democrats.
Stick with us while we wait to hear on when the Senate might take up the bill.
Delegate Stacey Plaskett has represented the US Virgin Islands since 2015
The US House is debating on a resolution to formally censure Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the US Virgin Islands and remove her from the US House Intelligence committee. The islands are not a US state and as such Plaskett, a Democrat, does not have voting privileges in the US House but she participates in debates and committees.
Among Epstein's documents released last week was a chain of communication between the sex offender and an unidentified person in Congress during a 2019 televised testimony for Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen. At the time, Epstein had been convicted to sex crimes and further charges followed.
The documents appear to show Epstein giving the person tips on questions to ask Cohen. When it was Plaskett's turn to ask questions, her inquires matched what Epstein had been texting that person.
Epstein owned a private island in the US Virgin Islands and documents show he made contributions to Plaskett's campaign. In 2019, Plaskett sought to distance herself from Epstein and announced she would donate Epstein's money of around $8,000 (£6,000) to charities working with women and children.
The question of releasing the Epstein files has loomed over Trump’s presidency. Let’s take a look at the key moments that bring us to this point.
February
July
September
12 November
16 November
18 November
John Thune, the majority leader in the US Senate, says President Trump "sounds like he's prepared to sign" the bill to release the Epstein files, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.
"We'll move fairly quickly over here," he added, referring to the bill's passage through the Senate.
He is then asked about potential changes that US Speaker Mike Johnson might want to make to the bill.
Thune responds: "I think there's some things he'd like to change but a 427-1 vote, it's not likely to happen."
As a reminder: Now that the bill has passed through the House, it will face a Senate vote.
Earlier today, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also indicated he would push Republican senators to move "immediately" on the Epstein bill, saying: "The American people have waited long enough."
We've just seen a statement from US Representative Robert Garcia, which says "we are ending this White House cover-up and demanding that Senator Thune take up the Epstein bill immediately".
He continues by saying "Donald Trump is panicking and trying to stop our investigation".
"We need to know what he’s hiding, and what powerful men are responsible for the rape and abuse of children and women," Garcia says.
Garcia, a Democrat, adds "let’s be clear – Donald Trump has the power to release the files today. But he chooses to delay and deflect".
He concludes his statement by saying: "No more lies. No more secrets. We will get justice for the survivors. Release the files, NOW”.
Gary O'Donoghue
Chief North America correspondent
As many of Jeffrey Epstein's victims looked on from the public gallery, Democrats and Republicans passed the bill with just one member voting against – marking an extraordinary turnaround in Republican sentiment towards the measure.
The legislation would force the justice department to release all documents relating to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, with caveats to protect ongoing potential prosecutions and the identity of underage victims.
The bill still needs to pass the Senate where, were it changed, it would have to return to the House of Representatives for another vote – all of which means it could be some time before any of these files see the light of day.
This whole affair has dented President Trump's authority. Despite his at times angry remonstrations with his supporters and some Republican legislators, he couldn't make this go away. And it's thwarted the Administration's attempts to get on the front foot on the issues on which it believes it is delivering results.
We've just heard that Republican US Representative Clay Higgins was the sole no vote for the bipartisan bill, which passed 427-1.
A social media post on his X account says: "I have been a principled 'NO' on this bill from the beginning".
He says the bill "reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc".
Higgins continues by saying "if enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt".
He is a member of the House Committee on Oversight and says it is "conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case".
"That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans," he says.
Higgins adds that he will vote for the bill when it comes back to the House, but only if the Senate amends the bill "to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated". Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill
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Watch: Moment House passes bill to release Epstein files
From outside the chamber you could hear the thunderous applause as the vote closed.
Dozens of reporters are lining the halls outside the chamber now waiting to hear from members of Congress.
Stick with us and we’ll bring you the latest.
The US House of Representatives has voted 427-1 to compel the justice department to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Under normal House rules, a bill needs a simple majority to pass. This bill is different.
Since this bill is being considered under suspension of the rules, it will require two-thirds of the House to vote in its favor.
There are 433 members, which means 289 will have to vote yes for the bill to pass. The two-thirds majority vote will also make the bill veto-proof, meaning if it reaches President Trump's desk and he rejects it, there would be enough votes to override the president's veto.
All of the House's Democrats are expected to vote yes on the bill, and following President Trump's intervention and reversal on the issue, most Republicans are voting yes too.
We may see a unanimous vote today before the bill moves to the Senate. Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill
The vote has started and even if you’re not watching you can tell in the hallways of the Capitol. We’re seeing House members run into the chamber, cast their vote and run back out. After a long morning of waiting, this part will go faster.
The debate in the US House has concluded, and voting has begun on the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
As a reminder, this is not the final step.
If the vote passes in the House of Representatives today, as widely anticipated, the next step is for it to pass through the Senate.
You can watch live above.
Republicans and Democrats are debating ahead of the vote, trading jabs and blame on who is responsible for the delay on releasing the files.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has the floor right now, and he says Democrats forcing an Epstein vote are distracting lawmakers from other "urgent priorities".
"This is a show vote," he said. "They're making a show of it."
Johnson says he supports the bill and the release of the files, but questions why Democrats didn't call for their unveiling when former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was still in office.
"Democrats are using the Epstein tragedy…as a political weapon to try to distract from their failures as a party," he said.
On Trump, he added: "The president had nothing to do with this and he had nothing to hide."Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill
I’m in the chamber listening to House Speaker Mike Johnson speak on the floor of the House.
In the chamber I can see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Anna Paulina Luna – two house Republicans who have campaigned for the release of the files.
At the top of the house gallery I can see survivors and survivors’ families sitting and quietly listening on – Virginia Giuffre's brother among them.
They’re eagerly awaiting the the final vote. That’s coming soon.
As the House debates the bill to compel the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files, here's a quick recap of what was released last week.
On 12 November Democrats on the Republican-led House Oversight Committee publicly released three emails out of thousands of documents received from the Epstein estate.
Included in the Democrats’ release was an April 2011 email from Epstein to his long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell alleging Trump "spent hours" with one of the victims, and calling the president the "dog that hasn't barked".
Trump has consistently denied any knowledge or involvement in Epstein's criminality.
The committee’s Republicans accused Democrats of cherry-picking from the documents and responded by releasing more than 23,000 pages. Among those messages, Epstein said in 2018 about Trump: "I know how dirty donald is" and "I am the one able to take him down".
Although some of the messages mention Trump's name, none of the emails are to or from Trump directly. The White House has said the emails released "prove literally nothing".
The rule debate over the Epstein files bill has now finished, with lawmakers now pivoting to debating the merits of the bill itself.
Stick with us, we'll bring you the top lines from the House floor.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan is managing the floor debate for Republicans with Ranking Member Jamie Raskin up for the Democrats.
You can watch live by clicking on the link at the top of the page.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman are meeting at the White House.
They're taking questions from the media right now in the Oval Office.
The president scolds a journalist when asked why he can't just release the Epstein files now, instead of waiting for Congress.
He replies by saying "it's not the question that I mind; it's your attitude. I think you're a terrible reporter". Trump also calls her "a terrible person".
"I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein… I threw him out of my club several years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert."
Trump adds "I never went to his island".
He says he thinks the licence should be taken away from ABC after the journalist's question. "You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter. No more questions from you," the president says before moving on.
Keep up to date with our live coverage of the White House visit of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent
As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on mandating the release of the Epstein files, voters in central Tennessee are heading to the polls for early voting in a special election to fill a vacant House seat.
The Epstein issue has already made waves in this race, with left-wing groups supporting Democrat Aftyn Behn spending $300,000 to air adverts accusing the Republican candidate, Matt Van Epps, of wanting to keep the Epstein files “locked away”.
I’m outside a voting location in Nashville, the state capital, where Democrats hope heavy liberal turnout will help Behn. The voters I’ve spoken with so far have all been paying attention to the latest twists in the Epstein story, including today’s House of Representatives vote.
Amanda Gleaton spoke with the BBC about her concerns in today's special election
Amanda Gleaton tells me that while affordability and the economy are big issues in this campaign, “transparency” – including a full accounting of Epstein’s ties to the wealthy and powerful – is also at the top of her mind.
While the Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District is reliably Republican, having supported Donald Trump by more than 20% in last year’s presidential election, polls suggest this may be a tight race. If Behn wins on 2 December, it would be perhaps the most dramatic sign so far this year that the national mood is turning against Trump and the Republicans.
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