Credit: (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)WASHINGTON — In a rapid-fire pair of votes, both chambers of Congress passed legislation to force the public release of troves of documents about Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased serial sex abuser and trafficker, clearing the bill for the president’s signature.
By a 427-1 vote Tuesday, the House passed the bipartisan bill to force the disclosure of records about federal investigations into Epstein, who died in a New York City prison in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Victims of Epstein’s abuse seated in the viewing gallery and dozens of lawmakers, largely on the Democratic side, applauded after the vote closed. On the floor, members cheered and took photos of the vote tally. After the overwhelming House vote, the Senate, using a procedural move that allows legislation to clear immediately once it hits the Senate floor, deemed that the bill would be passed once the House releases it. The Senate is expected to officially receive the bill Wednesday.
“Regardless of who will be implicated and what party they belong to, the public has a right to know,” Rep. Nellie Pou (D-9th) said in a statement after the bill passed.
Along with Pou, Reps. Donald Norcross (D-1st), Jeff Van Drew (R-2nd), Herb Conaway (D-3rd), Chris Smith (R-4th), Josh Gottheimer (D-5th), Frank Pallone (D-6th), Tom Kean Jr. (R-7th), Rob Menendez (D-8th), LaMonica McIver (D-10th) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12th) voted for it.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th), the incoming governor, did not vote.
The bill requires the administration to make public a sweeping array of records about Epstein from the Department of Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. attorneys offices.
The legislation would also make records, including flight and travel records, business documents, medical files, digital communications and other information, searchable and downloadable online.
To become law, President Donald Trump — who was friends with Epstein and has called the saga around the sex abuser a “Democrat hoax”— must sign the bill and then direct his administration to comply with the new law.
After broadly opposing the bill, Republicans moved en masse to support it after Trump said they should do so.
For weeks, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been releasing tens of thousands of files from Epstein’s estate on a rolling basis following a committee subpoena.
The life of Trump, whose name appears heavily in the emails the committee released, overlapped with Epstein’s.
When he was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, the labor secretary during Trump’s first administration, approved a lenient 2008 deal that allowed Epstein to avoid lengthy punishment.
The Trump administration this summer transferred Ghislaine Maxwell, an accomplice of Epstein’s, from federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison in Texas known for holding white-collar criminals.
In 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in Epstein’s crimes.
Before passage, Van Drew criticized Democrats and the Biden administration for what he described as sluggish action in unearthing records about Epstein.
“Why didn’t they demand the release of these files from jump start?” Van Drew said during floor debate. “What I see is a group more focused on scoring political points than protecting abused children.”
Van Drew sponsored the bill that cleared the House legislation before withdrawing his signature.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, a Democrat of Maryland who led floor debate for Democrats, described any delay in releasing the files about Epstein as a “real-time coverup” into a criminal enterprise that has “ravaged the lives of more than 1,000” girls and women.
