Trump Reverses Position On Release of Epstein Files, Calls On GOP To Act
President Donald J. Trump made clear on Sunday that House Republicans should vote to release all remaining files tied to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein — a sharp pivot from his earlier position, when he urged GOP lawmakers to avoid backing a Democrat-driven measure mandating disclosure. The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on legislation compelling the Justice Department to release every document connected to the Epstein case.
The vote is moving forward despite opposition from Republican leadership after a discharge petition forced the bill to the floor with the required 218 signatures. Even if it clears the House, the bill would still need approval from the Senate and the President’s signature to become law.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because 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 Truth Social Sunday night.
As of late Sunday, the New York Post reported that the President had not yet said whether he would encourage Senate Republicans to support the measure or whether he planned to sign it should it reach his desk.
The discharge petition was signed unanimously by all 214 House Democrats and by four Republicans — Thomas Massie (Ky.), Nancy Mace (S.C.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) — a lineup that drew Trump’s criticism earlier in the week.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 pages of material from Epstein’s estate. The documents included emails in which Epstein — who died Aug. 10, 2019, in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges — claimed former President Trump knew of Epstein’s alleged misconduct involving underage girls. However, the Post noted the documents do not independently corroborate Epstein’s assertions.
“[O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked [G]hislaine to stop,” Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff in a Jan. 31, 2019, email referencing Ghislaine Maxwell’s recruitment of victims from the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Wolff’s credibility has long been subject to scrutiny.
In another email the following day, Epstein wrote to himself that although “Trump knew of it, and came to my house many times during that period,” the future president “never got a massage.”
Trump and Epstein were known to have been socially acquainted in the 1990s and early 2000s before falling out over a real-estate dispute involving a Palm Beach mansion.
On Friday, President Trump announced he would instruct the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi later confirmed she had tapped Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the inquiry.
“[T]he House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE!” Trump wrote Sunday. “All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT.”
“Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it before our Landslide Election Victory. Some ‘members’ of the Republican Party are being ‘used,’ and we can’t let that happen,” he continued.
“Let’s start talking about the Republican Party’s Record Setting Achievements, and not fall into the Epstein ‘TRAP,’ which is actually a curse on the Democrats, not us. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Meanwhile, newly surfaced documents from Epstein’s estate reveal fresh concerns about Democrat involvement. Among the records — digital communications, emails, and text messages published Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee — Epstein appeared to exchange messages with a Democratic member of Congress during Michael Cohen’s February 2019 testimony. The texts suggest Epstein’s real-time commentary may have influenced the congresswoman’s questioning. Her name was redacted in the documents, according to The Washington Post.