President Trump said Wednesday he has signed a bill that requires the Justice Department to release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, after months of controversy that ended with the House and Senate passing the bill by nearly-unanimous margins this week.
Mr. Trump announced the bill-signing in a Truth Social post that lashed out at prominent Democrats with links to Epstein.
“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” the president wrote.
Mr. Trump endorsed the legislation over the weekend, after a handful of House Republicans joined with Democratic lawmakers and forced the House to hold a vote. The legislation passed the House 427-1 on Tuesday and moved through the Senate unanimously.
Mr. Trump’s support for the bill marks an about-face after the president had urged Republicans to avoid focusing on the Epstein issue for months, calling the push for more federal records on Epstein to be released a distraction tactic.
Maria Farmer, who accused Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, of sexual abuse in the 1990s, said the bill-signing was a “long time coming.”
“I have waited nearly three decades for answers about how my reports of abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were investigated by federal authorities,” she said in a statement. “After being left in the dark for decades, having my repeated calls for transparency and action ignored, and living through nearly five administrations that turned a blind eye to this enormous travesty of justice, Congress finally listened to survivors.”
Farmer is currently suing the FBI, which she alleges ignored her initial sexual assault accusation. She said Wednesday that the bill’s passage “doesn’t absolve the government and law enforcement’s enormous failure to do its job the past 30 years.”
“I hope to see the government make good on its promise of transparency and release the entirety of the files – not bits and pieces, not mass redactions but the complete truth, removing only child sexual abuse material and victim names and identifying information,” she said.
What will the Epstein files bill do?
The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to make public all of the Justice Department and FBI’s unclassified records, communications and investigative materials related to Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.
It’s not clear what new documents will emerge, but Epstein and Maxwell were at the center of a series of federal investigations dating back nearly two decades. Tens of thousands of pages of records on their cases have been released by lawmakers in recent months, including files held by the government and Epstein’s estate.
Epstein was initially investigated by federal and local authorities in Florida in the 2000s, which ended with him controversially agreeing to plead guilty to state prostitution charges in exchange for avoiding a federal indictment. Then, in 2019, he was charged in New York federal court with sex trafficking of minors, but he died by suicide while in federal custody. Maxwell was charged with sex trafficking a year later and sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
The case has drawn years of public fascination, including speculation and conspiracy theories spurred by Epstein’s extensive ties to wealthy and powerful people. Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump for his years-long friendship with Epstein, while Mr. Trump has scrutinized former President Bill Clinton for his relationship with the late financier. Neither man has been accused of illegality or charged with a crime, and both have denied all wrongdoing.
The Trump administration has faced calls from both sides to release more information on Epstein — and criticism from its own allies after some administration officials had promised further disclosures.
In February, Bondi gave out binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a group of right-wing influencers, but she faced backlash after the influencers said much of the information was already public.
Five months later, the Justice Department and FBI finished a review of the Epstein case and concluded that there was no incriminating “client list,” no evidence that he blackmailed prominent people and no evidence that would support an investigation into anybody else. The review also found that he died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019. Some Trump supporters were dissatisfied and unconvinced by the findings.
The push to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act was led by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. Seeking to navigate around GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson’s skepticism of the bill, the pair circulated a “discharge petition,” a procedural move that requires the House to vote on a bill if a majority of its members sign on.
The petition drew support from four Republicans, including Massie and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime Trump ally who has increasingly broken with her party in recent weeks. Mr. Trump announced last week he was withdrawing his endorsement of Greene, which the Georgia lawmaker speculated was driven by the Epstein issue.
For weeks, the petition sat at 217 signatures — one short of the number needed to force a vote — as newly elected Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva’s awaited her swearing-in ceremony after winning her seat in a September special election. Democrats accused Johnson of slow-walking Grijalva’s swearing-due due to the Epstein bill, but Johnson said the delay was because the House remained out of session during the government shutdown.
Grijalva signed the petition last week, forcing the House to hold a vote. Within days, Mr. Trump encouraged House Republicans to vote for the bill, leading it to pass easily on Tuesday.
