Trump expected to sign bill to release Epstein files after it clears Senate and House: Live updates

Following Tuesday’s House vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requested unanimous consent to immediately pass it in the upper chamber, which was granted.

Here’s Eric Garcia again to explain how that one played out.

If you’re just joining us, the House of Representatives and Senate yesterday voted near-unanimously to compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on the late pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

It is now up to President Donald Trump to sign off on the bill, which he indicated Monday he was willing to do after months of stalling and awkward questions about his past relationship with the disgraced financier, who took his own life in a New York City jail cell in August 2019.

First up, here’s Eric Garcia on what happened in the House, in which Louisiana Republican Rep. Clay Higgins was the lone naysayer in a 427-1 vote.

Yesterday’s seismic developments leave the president with even bigger problems than the prospect of further Epstein revelations emerging as his base threatens to tear itself apart over the scandal.

Podcaster Joe Rogan has warned that GOP members now “hate” Rep. Thomas Massie, whose discharge petition started the release process, Ben Shapiro has attacked Trump ally Steve Bannon for serving as a “confiant” to Epstein, and Alex Jones has urged the president to refrain from attacking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to avoid a “MAGA civil war.”

This is what Rogan had to say:

Here’s Shapiro’s take on Bannon:

“One of the things that Steve Bannon has been trying to do for years is claim that he’s sort of the intellectual mover and shaker behind MAGA, which, of course, is really silly. It’s really silly. There is no shadow president to President Trump. There is no one who is defining his program except for President Trump.

“He, among other people, has been quite vocal about the so-called Epstein scandal. He’s been very vocal about this. He’s talked about it a lot. Well, it turns out, again, that so much of what is happening right now is just fib-ery.”

Citing the “hundreds” of texts sent between Bannon and Epstein, Shapiro noted that he the former was discussing media strategy as recently as June 2018 and continued:

“If you’re acting as a confidant and PR adviser to a convicted sex offender like Jeffrey Epstein, who is well known to be into underage girls, if that is – I don’t know what that says about you or why you should have any level of authority in any future Republican Party. This seems to be quite damning.”

And this is what Jones had to say as he guested on Eric Bolling’s Real America’s Voice show Bolling!:

“Trump is not God. We are big supporters, but we’re not Democrat cult members where we don’t question things. When we think something’s wrong, we might be wrong too, but we’re gonna speak out about it.

“He’s the best shot we’ve got at saving this country in the world right now, so when I criticize Trump, it’s from a place of love, and he’s our lifeboat here – trying to get him back on track. So in the MAGA civil war, stop attacking Massie, stop attacking Rand Paul, stop attacking MTG, ’cause it doesn’t help him in the end and it doesn’t help them and it doesn’t help America.

“So we’re here trying to get Trump to course correct. It looks like he’s starting to do it.”

A survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse who voted for Donald Trump has said the president “owes us an apology.”

Jena-Lisa Jones told CNN Tuesday night that Trump should invite Epstein survivors to the Oval Office when the president signs a bill to force the release of government files related to the convicted sex offender.

“He owes us that much. He owes us an apology. I think that would be one way of showing some remorse for this drawn-out process that didn’t need to be,” Jones said.

Representative Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican, was the only House member to vote against a bill to force the release of Justice Department files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Higgins defended his “no” vote on X, writing, “As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc.”

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who co-sponsored a bill to release government files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, said Tuesday that President Donald Trump should invite survivors of Epstein’s crimes to the bill’s signing ceremony.

The bill has already been approved by the House and Senate. Trump had promised to sign it if it reached his desk.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, was one of the 427 House members to vote on a bill to force the Justice Department to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Today, I voted for transparency and justice for survivors. Americans deserve to know who was involved with confidence they will be held accountable,” Pelosi wrote on X Tuesday evening.

Although it was technically not a state dinner, since bin Salman’s father Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud is Saudi Arabia’s head of state, Tuesday evening’s affair boasted all of the frills of one. Piano music played as the crown prince — along with soon-to-be trillionaire Elon Musk, soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo, and top administration officials — poured into the East Room of the White House to attend the candlelit, black-tie dinner.

The dinner marks bin Salman’s first invite to the White House since the 2018 death of Khashoggi. A 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment determined that the crown prince “approved” the journalist’s killing. The crown prince, known as MBS, has vehemently denied any involvement.

In the Oval Office earlier Tuesday, a reporter asked about MBS’s alleged involvement in the murder. Trump came to bin Salman’s defense, calling Khashoggi “extremely controversial” and saying the crown prince “knew nothing about it.” Scolding the reporter, the president added: “You don’t have to embarrass our guests.”

Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who co-sponsored a bill to release Justice Department files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, warned of “legal penalties” if the files are not released after the bill is signed into law.

“There are criminal penalties if they don’t follow the law,” Massie told CNN Tuesday night. “People could eventually go to jail for not releasing these files.”

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said Tuesday the Treasury Department has ‘”thousands and thousands” of bank records from the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“My follow-the-money investigation into Epstein’s network that began in 2022 will continue regardless of how the Department of Justice proceeds,” Wyden said after the House and Senate approved a bill to force the DOJ to release files related to Epstein.

The senator continued: “There is another massive Epstein file in the possession of the Treasury Department containing thousands and thousands of his bank records, and that file must be released too.

“The information in those bank records, a portion of which my investigators reviewed at the Treasury in 2024, is key to uncovering who financed Epstein’s network, who enabled his trafficking, and who else participated.”

Epstein faced federal sex trafficking charges when he died by suicide in jail in 2019.

Wyden added: “Secretary Bessent has repeatedly refused to produce those records for further investigation. If he won’t change his tune, Congress must change it for him.”

The Independent has reached out to the Treasury Department for comment.