WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to compel the release of federal investigative materials on notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) urged the Senate to “correct” the bill and provide “proper protections for the innocent.”
The measure, passed 427-1, would mandate the Department of Justice turn over all “unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” — and all classified information to the maximum extent possible — within 30 days of becoming law.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), would also order Attorney General Pam Bondi to deliver a list of government officials and other “politically exposed persons” linked to Epstein within 15 days.
“Republicans are letting the facts speak for themselves and pursuing justice for the victims of these heinous crimes,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) told The Post, before accusing Democrats of using Epstein victims “as political leverage” against President Trump and others.
While Trump said Monday he was willing to sign the discharge petition in its current form, Johnson warned Tuesday morning that it would “carelessly dump thousands of documents without proper protections for the innocent.”
“It is dangerously flawed,” Johnson told reporters on Capitol Hill, before urging Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to fix its issues. “Our problem and our frustration is, there’s no way for us in the House to amend it or correct these problems because the authors of the discharge will not allow it.”
Four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — joined with all 214 House Democrats to get the necessary 218 signatures needed to vote on the discharge petition.
“I want to see the emails that Epstein had with some of these other rich and powerful people,” Khanna told The Post in an exclusive interview Monday. “I want to see the photographs that were on his computer. I want to see … who were the other men who engaged either in sex trafficking or actually visited the Epstein island [Little St. James in the US Virgin Islands], who were the men and women who may have known about Epstein’s abuse and yet were taking money from him and still going to dinner parties with him and still emailing with him.
“And I want to know why some of these people still have universities named after them, why they still have scholarships named after them, why they are still in positions of power,” the Silicon Valley rep added. “There needs to be a reckoning in this country.”
Some of that information has been released as a result of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the DOJ’s Epstein materials, albeit with many redactions. Other documents came out as part of federal cases against Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Johnson cited the resolution’s failure “to fully protect victim privacy,” the risks of disclosing Child Sexual Abuse Materials (CSAM) or non-credible allegations against others, the potential to unmask undercover law enforcement or whistleblowers and reveal “confidential sources and methods” used by the feds.
“I’m gonna vote to move this forward,” he added. “I think it could be close to a unanimous vote because everybody here, all the Republicans, want to go on record to show there’s a maximum transparency.”
Johnson emphasized there was “no certainty” the bill would pass the Senate, but he expressed confidence that if it was, Thune and other Republicans would “take the time methodically to do what we have not been allowed to do in the House to amend this discharge petition and to make sure that these protections are there.”
The discharge petition does include language calling for the protection of victims’ privacy — language that Johnson said didn’t go far enough — but states that no names associated with Epstein can be redacted in the investigative files for reasons of “[e]mbarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”
During a press conference earlier Tuesday, Massie, Khanna and Greene had joined Epstein victims and thanked Trump as well as administration officials for helping to urge the GOP to pass the discharge petition after months of dismissing it.
“I beg you, President Trump, please stop making this political. It is not about you,” said Jena-Lisa Jones, who was abused by Epstein as a 14-year-old girl. “I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”
Like Johnson, Trump supported the bill’s passage but rejected Democratic calls for transparency on the Epstein issue — which weren’t prioritized when their party controlled the White House and Congress between January 2021 and January 2023 — as a political “trap” set for Republicans.
Both have also pointed out that prominent Democrats — including former President Bill Clinton and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers — enjoyed chummy relationships with Epstein, with the president ordering a Justice Department probe of those ties last week.
In Summers’ case, his interactions with Epstein continued for more than a decade after he pleaded guilty in Florida to soliciting a minor for prostitution in June 2008 — right up until the 66-year-old’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019, according to emails released last week by the House Oversight Committee.
Johnson noted that among the 65,000 documents already released by the Oversight panel were “Epstein’s flight logs, his personal financial records and ledgers, his daily calendars, and so much more” not “even written or included in the discharge petition.”
Democrats on the Oversight panel selectively released three emails last Wednesday that suggested Trump may have been aware of Epstein sexually abusing girls, though the allegation concerned his late victim Virginia Giuffre, who never publicly accused Trump of wrongdoing.
Trump was friendly with Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s in New York and Palm Beach, Fla., before breaking off contact after he discovered Epstein and Maxwell “stole” girls such as Giuffre from his Mar-a-Lago club’s spa.
In July, Trump’s DOJ and FBI concluded a “systematic review” of all Epstein materials in its possession that determined the financier didn’t have a blackmail ring or “client list” as part of his sex trafficking operation and that no third parties linked to him could be reasonably charged with crimes.
But public outcry over the July 6 memo led to months of backlash against the president and his administration, with a majority of Americans indicating in public polls that they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the matter.
Epstein was found dead on Aug. 10, 2019, in his Manhattan lockup before he could be tried. His death was later ruled a suicide by federal and medical investigators.
In December 2021, Maxwell was convicted of taking part in the sex trafficking conspiracy and sentenced to 20 years in prison in June of the following year.
