{"id":172387,"date":"2025-11-19T09:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T09:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-agrees-to-pass-epstein-files-bill-after-near-unanimous-house-vote-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T09:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T09:29:15","slug":"senate-agrees-to-pass-epstein-files-bill-after-near-unanimous-house-vote-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/senate-agrees-to-pass-epstein-files-bill-after-near-unanimous-house-vote-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate agrees to pass Epstein files bill after near-unanimous House vote – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Legislation would next go to Trump who indicated he would sign bill after he and his allies backed down from opposition
US politics live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
The Senate on Tuesday moved swiftly to approve legislation that would force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, hours after a near-unanimous vote in the US House<\/a>, nearly wrapping up a bipartisan effort Donald Trump had fought for months.
By unanimous consent, the Senate agreed to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber from the House, which had overwhelmingly approved the bill earlier on Tuesday in a 427-1 tally. Once the legislation is forwarded to the Senate, it will be automatically approved and cleared for Trump\u2019s signature. The president, who dropped his opposition after it was clear it would pass, has said he would sign it.
\u201cThe American people have waited long enough. Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s victims have waited long enough,\u201d Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said in a floor speech on Tuesday, before winning unanimous consent. \u201cLet the truth come out. Let transparency reign.\u201d
The Senate had not yet received the bill from the House when it adjourned on Tuesday night.
The scandal over the Epstein files has dogged the president since his return to the White House, splintering his conservative base and spurring accusations of an attempted \u201ccover up\u201d from across the political spectrum.
Though Trump has for months dismissed the uproar over the government\u2019s handling of the Epstein case as a \u201cDemocrat hoax\u201d, he eventually relented and signaled his support for the House bill over the weekend, allowing Republican lawmakers to vote for the measure many of their constituents demanded they support.
On Tuesday morning, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, announced he would vote for it, making its passage certain.
Democrats<\/a>, along with survivors of Epstein and their advocates who were seated in a House gallery, broke into applause after the bill was passed. The sole \u201cno\u201d vote came from Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who said he worried the measure would make public identifying details of witnesses, potential suspects and others caught up in the investigation.
Several of the president\u2019s allies who voted for the bill did so only after criticizing it in floor speeches, arguing Democrats<\/a> were being insincere but that the House could spend no more time on the matter.
\u201cAs President Trump has stated, we have nothing to hide, nothing to hide here,\u201d said Republican congressman Troy Nehls. \u201cI\u2019m voting to release the files so that we can move on from the [smear] campaign the Democrats have manufactured. God bless Donald J Trump.\u201d
Republican judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan argued that Democrats could have pushed for the files\u2019 release during Joe Biden\u2019s presidency. \u201cWhy now, after four years of doing nothing? Because going after President Trump is an obsession with these guys.\u201d
Even as he announced his support, Johnson criticized the measure for not doing enough to protect victims of Epstein, a financier who died in 2019 by what investigators determined was suicide while he was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
\u201cEverybody here, all the Republicans<\/a>, want to go on record to show we\u2019re for maximum transparency, but they also want to note that we\u2019re demanding that this stuff get corrected before it is ever moves through the process and is complete,\u201d Johnson said.
Any changes to the bill made by the Senate would require it to be approved again by the House, probably delaying its enactment.
Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate judiciary committee, wrote on X<\/a> that he had \u201cbeen calling for full transparency in the Epstein case since 2019\u201d and that the chamber should vote on the bill \u201cASAP\u201d.
The Epstein case returned dramatically to the public eye in July, when the justice department and FBI released a memo<\/a> saying they had nothing further to disclose about the investigation. That flew in the face of statements made by Trump and his top officials that indicated they would release more information about Epstein\u2019s offenses and ties to global elites once they took office.
Shortly after, four dissident Republicans in the House and all Democrats banded together to force a vote on a bill to release the investigative files, over Johnson\u2019s objections.
The leaders of that effort cheered the imminent vote, with the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna calling Tuesday \u201c<\/strong>the first day of real reckoning for the Epstein class\u201d.
\u201cBecause survivors spoke up, because of their courage, the truth is finally going to come out, and when it comes out, this country is really going to have a moral reckoning. How did we allow this to happen?\u201d Khanna said at a press conference, adding that the case was \u201c<\/strong>one of the most horrific and disgusting corruption scandals in our country\u2019s history.\u201d
Trump\u2019s friendship with Epstein has had staying power in American politics as the late disgraced financier had links to many other rich and powerful figures in the US and overseas. The president\u2019s dramatic shift came after it became increasingly apparent that the bill would pass the GOP-controlled House, most likely with significant support from Republican lawmakers. Trump in recent days changed his approach from outright opposition to declarations of indifference.
\u201cI DON\u2019T CARE!\u201d the president wrote in a social media post on Sunday. \u201cAll I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.\u201d
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Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he did not want the Epstein scandal to \u201cdeflect\u201d from the White House\u2019s successes, and claimed it was a \u201choax\u201d and \u201ca Democrat problem\u201d.
\u201cWe\u2019ll give them everything,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cLet the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it, but don\u2019t talk about it too much, because honestly, I don\u2019t want to take it away from us.\u201d
Thomas Massie, an iconoclastic Republican congressman who frequently defies Trump and joined with Khanna to pursue the files\u2019 release, noted the president\u2019s reversal on the Epstein issue.
\u201cWe fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House and the vice-president to get this win,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they\u2019re on our side today, though, so let\u2019s give them some credit as well.\u201d
In July, Khanna and Massie turned to a procedural tactic known as a discharge petition to circumvent House leadership and compel a vote on their bill, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, if a majority of the 435-member House signs on.
Johnson went to extraordinary lengths to avoid a vote on the the measure, which splintered his conference. Democrats accused the speaker of delaying the swearing-in of the Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva to prevent her from becoming the decisive 218th signatory. She signed her name to the petition<\/a> moments after officially taking office last week.
As president, Trump has the authority to order the justice department to release the documents in its possession, as he has previously done with the government records related to the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and John F Kennedy.
Emails made public last week by a House committee that has opened a separate inquiry into the scandal showed Epstein believed Trump \u201cknew about the girls\u201d, though it was not clear what that phrase meant. The White House said the released emails contained no proof of wrongdoing by Trump.
Last week, the president instructed the justice department to investigate prominent Democrats\u2019 ties to Epstein. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who earlier this year said a review of the files revealed no further investigative leads, replied to Trump that she would get on it right away and has appointed a prosecutor to lead the effort.
The Epstein scandal is a core issue for a swathe of Trump\u2019s rightwing base, some of whom believe in conspiracy theories that surround Epstein and his coterie of powerful friends and associates. Unlike many other issues, the Epstein files have prompted rebellions from Trump\u2019s supporters in politics and the media, who have called on the president to follow through on his campaign promise to release them.
Meanwhile, several Epstein survivors have ramped up pressure on Congress and Trump to advance the measure.
\u201cIt\u2019s time that we put the political agendas and party affiliations to the side. This is a human issue. This is about children,\u201d survivor Haley Robson said at the press conference. \u201cThere is no place in society for exploitation, sexual crimes or exploitation of women.\u201d
She then addressed her comments to Trump, saying: \u201cWhile I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I\u2019m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can\u2019t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is.\u201d
On Monday night, activists projected an image of Trump and Epstein on to the justice department building, accompanied by the message: \u201cRelease the files now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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