The House voted 427-1 in favor of a bill Tuesday to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted s3x 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.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., cast the only vote against the release.
When a small bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in July to maneuver around House Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of which bills reach 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 in their efforts to prevent the vote. Now the president has bowed to the growing momentum behind the bill and even said he will sign it if it also passes the Senate.
Tuesday’s vote 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 s.exually abused and trafficked underage girls.
“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 and longtime Trump loyalist
A separate investigation conducted by the House Oversight Committee has released thousands of pages of emails and other documents from Epstein’s estate, showing his 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.
Pushing for more accountability, the survivors of Epstein’s abuse cast the current effort in Congress as a step towards accountability for Epstein’s crimes after years of government failure under multiple presidential administrations.
Trump has said he cut ties with Epstein years ago, but tried for months to move past the demands for disclosure. On Monday, he told reporters that Epstein was connected to more Democrats and that he didn’t want the Epstein files to “detract from the great success of the Republican Party.”
Still, many in the Republican base have continued to demand the release of the files.
Adding to that pressure, several 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 political conflicts that surround it,” said Jena-Lisa Jones, one of the survivors.
She added that she had voted for Trump, but 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 also refused to swear-in Democrat 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.
