The House of Representatives voted to release the Epstein files after in a 427-1 vote.
The singular vote against the documents’ release came from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), who said the move “abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America.”
“As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt,” he explained. “Not by my vote. The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters that he expects the bill to be taken up and approved in his chamber quickly. “My assumption is that the president sounds like he’s prepared to sign it, so I’d assume we’ll move fairly quickly over here,” he said.
The vote comes as President Trump urged House Republicans over the weekend to vote to release the Epstein files, declaring, “As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the Fake News Media, 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, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown.'”
