U.S. lawmakers are set to vote on whether to release the Epstein files. Here’s what you need to know
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The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill today that is meant to force the Department of Justice to make all of its information on Jeffrey Epstein public.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
From the time Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a New York City jail cell in August, 2019, he’s been at the centre of conspiracy theories on the U.S. political right. The theories claimed that the financier and child sex trafficker had not died by suicide, as the authorities said, but was murdered to cover up the participation of other powerful people in his crimes.
At the urging of his base, Donald Trump promised before the 2024 election to release the government’s investigative files on Mr. Epstein – a former friend of his, with whom Mr. Trump says he had a falling out before Mr. Epstein’s arrest – if he won.
But this past summer, Mr. Trump abruptly reversed course. He refused to make the files public and embarked on a furious campaign to convince his supporters to stop talking about Mr. Epstein and ensure the files are never released.
The latest chapter in this drama is set to unfold on Tuesday, when the U.S. House of Representatives votes on a bill meant to force the Department of Justice to make public all of its information on Mr. Epstein. The vote will take place less than a week after the release of a swath of the late criminal’s e-mails, in which he insisted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls.”
Whether the files will ever come out in full and whether there are more references to Mr. Trump in them remain open questions. But the President’s handling of the Epstein case has already opened up cracks in his MAGA movement and forged a strange alliance of convenience between some far-right figures and the opposition Democrats. Here is where things stand now.
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U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie speaks to members of the media outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.Heather Diehl/Getty Images
How did this become a battle between Mr. Trump and some of his supporters?
MAGA’s interest in Mr. Epstein isn’t hard to figure out: The movement has long embraced conspiracy theories such as QAnon positing the existence of secret pedophile cabals among global elites. Mr. Epstein, accused of trafficking underage girls to his wealthy friends, seemed like a real-life version of that.
In one typical 2023 exchange, Kash Patel, then a MAGA influencer, told the pundit Glenn Beck that the then-director of the FBI was in possession of Mr. Epstein’s “black book,” a hypothesized list of the names of his clients. Mr. Patel advised Mr. Trump to campaign for president on releasing it. In 2024, Mr. Trump promised just that.
This past February, a month after the start of the second Trump administration, Attorney-General Pam Bondi told Fox News that Mr. Epstein’s client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review” at the “directive by the President.”
Then, in July, Ms. Bondi and Mr. Patel abruptly reversed course, saying no client list existed, and that they would not disclose any further information. Mr. Trump demanded that everyone drop the subject. “It’s all been a big hoax,” he declared on one occasion, claiming only “stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans” wanted the files to come out.
As a regular promoter of conspiracy theories, most significantly on the 2020 election, Mr. Trump’s gambit came across as highly unusual.
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A projection seen Monday on the wall of the National Gallery of Art in Washington calls on Congress to vote yes on the Epstein files transparency act.Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press
Why doesn’t Mr. Trump want the files released? What’s in them?
Mr. Trump was friends with Mr. Epstein between the 1980s and the early 2000s, when both men divided their time between New York and Florida. Mr. Trump has said he had a falling out with Mr. Epstein before the latter’s first arrest in 2006 and knew nothing of his crimes.
In a book compiled by Mr. Epstein’s friends and family before his 50th birthday in 2003, Mr. Trump appears to have contributed a suggestive note, written inside a line drawing of a woman’s figure. “May every day be another wonderful secret,” it concludes.
Mr. Trump insists the note, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and later subpoenaed from Mr. Epstein’s estate by a congressional committee, is fake.
Justice Department says it will launch probe into Epstein’s ties with Democrats
A trove of more than 20,000 pages worth of e-mails, text messages and other documents turned over by the estate to Congress, shows Mr. Epstein discussing Mr. Trump frequently in the years before he died. “Of course he knew about the girls,” Mr. Epstein wrote of Mr. Trump in 2019. In a 2011 e-mail, he said Mr. Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims.
At least part of Mr. Trump’s sensitivity to the story may come from his own lengthy history of sexual misconduct accusations. More than 20 women have levelled allegations against Mr. Trump, all of which he denies.
In 2016, Mr. Trump’s first presidential campaign was nearly derailed by the release of an Access Hollywood outtake in which he bragged about grabbing women’s genitals without their consent. And in 2023, a civil jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay her US$88.3-million.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has said he had a falling out with Jeffrey Epstein before his arrest.Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
What is happening now?
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, a bill by maverick Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, would compel the disclosure of the files. Three other far-right Republicans – Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace – joined with all Democrats to sign a discharge petition forcing a vote on the legislation.
The administration pulled out all the stops last week to try to stop the vote, including summoning Ms. Boebert to a meeting with Ms. Bondi at the White House Situation Room, where the President usually reviews war plans.
Once it became clear that the vote would go ahead and many more Republicans would break ranks to vote in favour, Mr. Trump abruptly changed his message once again. “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Epstein’s e-mails paint a picture of his influence and connections even after conviction
If the bill passes the House as expected, it would still have to get through the Senate and be signed into law by Mr. Trump to take effect. Because the Senate requires 60 votes to overcome the filibuster, 13 Republicans would have to join all Democrats to make this happen.
Whatever the outcome, the battle over the documents appears to have already claimed Mr. Trump’s once-close alliance with Ms. Greene as a casualty.
“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” he wrote on Truth Social last week, before soliciting candidates to run against her in the next Republican primary. “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green is a disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!”
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A protester holds a sign outside the Capitol on Nov. 12. Pressure has been ramping up for the release of the Epstein files.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
The rupture appears to have been building for some time, with Ms. Greene also arguing in favour of extending Obamacare tax credits and criticizing Mr. Trump for spending so much time on foreign policy rather than solving the U.S.’s affordability crisis.
It’s “astonishing, really, how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out,” she wrote on X, while “most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America.”
