Senate approves bill to release Epstein files after near-unanimous House vote

The Senate on Tuesday gave swift approval to legislation that will force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, following a near-unanimous vote in the US House of Representatives and a reversal by Donald Trump and his Republican allies who relented after months of trying to forestall the bipartisan effort involving a scandal that has dogged the president since his return to the White House.

The Senate acted by unanimous consent, which requires approval from each senator but does not require a formal roll call vote, expediting the process. Hours earlier, the House overwhelmingly approved the bill on a 427-1 tally. Once the legislation is forwarded to the Senate, it will be automatically approved.

The bill next goes to Trump for his signature. The president indicated on Monday that he would sign the measure.

The Epstein case returned dramatically to the public eye in July, when the justice department and FBI released a memo 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’s 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’s objections. The leaders of that effort cheered the imminent vote, with the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna calling Tuesday “the first day of real reckoning for the Epstein class”.

“Because 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?” Khanna said at a press conference, adding that the case was “one of the most horrific and disgusting corruption scandals in our country’s history.”

Trump’s 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’s 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.

“We’ll give them everything,” he told reporters. “Let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it, but don’t talk about it too much, because honestly, I don’t want to take it away from us.” Thomas Massie, an iconoclastic Republican congressman who frequently defies Trump and joined with Khanna to pursue the files’ release, noted the president’s reversal on the Epstein issue: “We fought the president, the attorney general, the FBI director, the speaker of the House and the vice-president to get this win,” he said. “But they’re on our side today, though, so let’s give them some credit as well.”

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 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 “knew about the girls”, 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’ 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’s 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’s supporters in politics and the media, who have called on the president to follow through on his campaign promise to release them.

On Monday night, activists projected an image of Trump and Epstein on to the justice department building, accompanied by the message: “Release the files now.”