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Epstein files bill heading to Trump's desk
Fox News Radio's Ryan Schmelz joins LiveNOW's Austin Westfall to detail where the Epstein files bill stands after Congress approved the release on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON - The House and Senate have both approved a bill requiring the Justice Department to release its files on the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, advancing legislation that President Donald Trump and Republican leaders had sought for months to block.
The bill now goes to Trump for his signature.
RELATED: Epstein files vote: Here's who voted against releasing the Epstein files
The House bill passed 427-1, with the only no vote coming from Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who is a fervent supporter of Trump. He also chairs a subcommittee that initiated a subpoena on the Justice Department for the Epstein files.
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BREAKING: House passes 'Epstein files' release bill
A bill which clears the way to begin releasing the documents known as the "Epstein files" was passed in the US House on Tuesday, with the bill now headed to the Senate.
What does the bill do?
Why you should care:
The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or continuing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted, per the bill.
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Lawmakers speak outside of Capitol hill
Lawmakers speak to reporters outside of Capitol hill after the house vote on Jeffrey Epstein files.
RELATED: Trump reverses course, calls on House Republicans to release Epstein files
The department, however, would not be allowed to redact information due to "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."
Several survivors of Epstein’s abuse, joined by lawmakers, also plan to speak outside the Capitol on Tuesday morning.
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Trump says he would sign bill to release Epstein files
President Trump said he'd be open to signing the discharge petition to release Epstein files, if Congress passes it. Trump made the remark while meeting with the White House FIFA World Cup 2026 Task Force at the White House.
What has Trump said?
What they're saying:
Trump said House Republicans should vote to release the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal after previously fighting the proposal as a growing number of those in his own party supported it.
"We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party," Trump wrote on social media late Sunday after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.
"I DON’T CARE!" Trump wrote in his social media post. "All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT."
RELATED: Epstein emails say Trump 'spent hours' with one of Epstein's victims
Trump’s statement followed a fierce fight within the GOP over the files, including an increasingly nasty split with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had long been one of his fiercest supporters.
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Republican who voted 'No' on releasing Epstein files
The final House vote was 427-1, indicating the broad of lawmakers are in support of releasing Jeffrey Epstein files. However, a Republican representative from Louisiana, Clay Higgins, was the only member to vote against the bill's passage. LiveNOW's Andy Mac brings Notus reporter Riley Rogerson into the conversation to further discuss the House vote on the Epstein files and the recent decision Rep. Higgins (R-LA) made.
Who was Jeffrey Epstein?
The backstory:
Epstein was charged in 2019 with sexually abusing dozens of underage girls in a case brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors to dispose of nearly identical allegations.
Prosecutors said the evidence against Epstein included a "vast trove" of hundreds or even thousands of lewd photographs of young women or girls, discovered in a weekend search of his New York City mansion. Authorities also found papers and phone records corroborating the alleged crimes, and a massage room still set up the way accusers said it appeared, prosecutors said.
Epstein was accused in the indictment of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them at his homes in Palm Beach, Florida, and New York from 2002 through 2005.
He "intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18," prosecutors said. He also paid some of his victims to recruit additional girls, creating "a vast network of underage victims for him to sexually exploit," prosecutors said.
Epstein’s arrest came amid increased #MeToo-era scrutiny of the 2008 non-prosecution agreement, which caused a furor in recent years as the details came to light, many of them exposed in a series of stories by The Miami Herald.
He died by suicide in August 2019. He was found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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Karoline Leavitt asked about Trump-Epstein connection
In the White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt was asked multiple questions about a recent release of Epstein emails that mention president Trump spending time with victims.
Trump and Epstein
Epstein wrote in a 2019 email to a journalist that Donald Trump "knew about the girls," according to documents made public, but what he knew — and whether it pertained to the sex offender’s crimes — is unclear.
The White House quickly accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the president.
The disclosures seemed designed to raise new questions about Trump’s friendship with Epstein and about what knowledge he may have had regarding what prosecutors call a yearslong effort by Epstein to exploit underage girls.
The Republican businessman-turned-politician has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he ended their relationship years ago.
The version of the 2011 email released by the Democrats redacted the name of the victim, but Republicans on the committee later said it was Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with a number of his rich and powerful friends.
Giuffre, who died earlier this year, long insisted that Trump was not among the men who had victimized her.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story is drawn from congressional sources, statements from lawmakers, public records, and social media posts from President Donald Trump. This story was reported from Los Angeles.