Congress Acts Swiftly on Epstein Files 11/19 06:09

   Both the House and Senate acted decisively Tuesday to pass a bill to force 
the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex 
offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval for an effort that 
had struggled for months to overcome opposition from President Donald Trump and 
Republican leadership.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Both the House and Senate acted decisively Tuesday to 
pass a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on 
the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval 
for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from 
President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.

   When a small, bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in 
July to maneuver around Speaker Mike Johnson's control of the House floor, it 
appeared a longshot effort -- especially as Trump urged his supporters to 
dismiss the matter as a "hoax."

   But both Trump and Johnson failed to prevent the vote. The president in 
recent days bowed to political reality, saying he would sign the bill. And just 
hours after the House vote, senators agreed to approve it unanimously, skipping 
a formal roll call.

   The decisive, bipartisan work in Congress Tuesday further showed the 
pressure mounting on lawmakers and the Trump administration to meet long-held 
demands that the Justice Department release its case files on Epstein, a 
well-connected financier who killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting 
trial in 2019 on charges he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls.

   For survivors of Epstein's abuse, passage of the bill was a watershed moment 
in a years-long quest for accountability.

   "These women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have 
to fight. And they did it by banding together and never giving up," said Rep. 
Marjorie Taylor Greene as she stood with some of the abuse survivors outside 
the Capitol Tuesday morning.

   "That's what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in 
the world, even the president of the United States, in order to make this vote 
happen today," added Greene, a Georgia Republican.

   In the end, only one lawmaker in Congress opposed the bill. Rep. Clay 
Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who is a fervent supporter of Trump, was the 
only "nay" vote in the House's 427-1 tally. He said he worried the legislation 
could lead to the release of information on innocent people mentioned in the 
federal investigation.

   The bill forces the release within 30 days of all files and communications 
related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his 
death in federal prison. It would allow the Justice Department to redact 
information about Epstein's victims or continuing federal investigations, but 
not information due to "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political 
sensitivity."

   Even before the bill's passage Tuesday, thousands of pages of emails and 
other documents from Epstein's estate have been released from an investigation 
by the House Oversight Committee.

   Those documents show Epstein's connections to global leaders, Wall Street 
powerbrokers, influential political figures and Trump himself. In the United 
Kingdom, King Charles III stripped his disgraced brother Prince Andrew of his 
remaining titles and evicted him from his royal residence after pressure to act 
over his relationship with Epstein.

   Trump's reversal on the Epstein files

   Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, but tried for months to 
move past the demands for disclosure.

   Still, many in the Republican base continued to demand the release of the 
files. Adding to that pressure, survivors of Epstein's abuse rallied outside 
the Capitol Tuesday morning. Bundled in jackets against the November chill and 
holding photos of themselves as teenagers, they recounted their stories of 
abuse.

   "We are exhausted from surviving the trauma and then surviving the politics 
that swirl around it," said one of the survivors.

   Another, Jena-Lisa Jones, said she had voted for Trump and had a message for 
the president: "I beg you Donald Trump, please stop making this political."

   The group of women also met with Johnson and rallied outside the Capitol in 
September, but have had to wait months for the vote.

   That's because Johnson kept the House closed for legislative business for 
nearly two months and refused to swear-in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of 
Arizona during the government shutdown. After winning a special election on 
Sept. 23, Grijalva had pledged to provide the crucial 218th vote to the 
petition for the Epstein files bill. But only after she was sworn into office 
last week could she sign her name to the discharge petition to give it majority 
support in the 435-member House.

   It quickly became obvious the bill would pass, and both Johnson and Trump 
began to fold. Trump on Sunday said Republicans should vote for the bill.

   Yet Greene told reporters that Trump's decision to fight the bill had 
betrayed his Make America Great Again political movement.

   "Watching this turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart," she said.

   How Johnson handled the bill

   Rather than waiting until next week for the discharge position to officially 
take effect, Johnson held the vote under a procedure that requires a two-thirds 
majority.

   But Johnson also spent a morning news conference listing off problems that 
he sees with the legislation. He argued that the bill could have unintended 
consequences by disclosing parts of federal investigations that are usually 
kept private, including information on victims.

   "This is a raw and obvious political exercise," Johnson said.

   Still, he voted for the bill. "None of us want to go on record and in any 
way be accused of not being for maximum transparency," he explained.

   Meanwhile, the bipartisan pair who sponsored the bill, Reps. Thomas Massie, 
R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., warned senators against doing anything that 
would "muck it up," saying they would face the same public uproar that forced 
both Trump and Johnson to back down.

   "We've needlessly dragged this out for four months," Massie said, adding 
that those raising problems with the bill "are afraid that people will be 
embarrassed. Well, that's the whole point here."

   Senate acts quickly

   Even as the bill cleared his chamber, Johnson pressed for the Senate to 
amend it to protect the information of "victims and whistleblowers." But Senate 
Majority Leader John Thune quickly shut down that notion.

   As senators gathered in the chamber Tuesday evening for the first votes of 
the week, it became clear no one would object to passing the bill as written.

   Just before Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called to pass the bill 
by unanimous consent, Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican who is close 
to Trump, walked in the chamber and gave Schumer a thumbs-up. He then walked 
over to Schumer and shook his hand.

   "This is about giving the American people the transparency they've been 
crying for," said Schumer, D-N.Y. "This is about holding accountable all the 
people in Jeffrey Epstein's circle who raped, groom, targeted and enabled the 
abuse of hundreds of girls for years and years."