The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote Tuesday on whether to release files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile whose associations have fueled years of political scrutiny. The vote fulfills a long-delayed pledge repeatedly made by Donald Trump and members of his administration prior to this year.
The vote was forced through a successful discharge petition that reached the required 218 signatures last week, bypassing House GOP leadership and compelling floor consideration. The Trump administration had attempted to block the petition, even arranging meetings between Rep. Lauren Boebert and senior officials including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel in an effort to persuade her to withdraw her signature.
The measure now appears likely to pass after Trump abruptly reversed his earlier opposition and urged House Republicans to vote yes. Many GOP lawmakers had already announced they would oppose releasing the files, but the petition’s bipartisan support meant the bill was positioned to succeed regardless—setting the stage for a potentially embarrassing defeat for Trump if he continued resisting it.
The long-running controversy over the Epstein files has taken a significant toll on Trump’s standing among his supporters. Throughout the year, Trump and several top administration figures—including Vice President JD Vance, FBI Director and Deputy Director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, as well as Attorney General Pam Bondi—had repeatedly suggested that a so-called “client list” existed and would be made public. Bondi herself said in February that she had such a list “on her desk” awaiting release.
But in July, the administration abruptly shut down the Epstein investigation and declared that no client list or additional co-conspirators existed. The decision triggered what many analysts viewed as the first political crisis in Trump’s career that he could not effectively contain. Trump then dismissed the entire Epstein matter as a “Democrat hoax” and publicly chastised supporters who questioned the reversal, saying he did not want their votes if they believed it. Soon after, 211 Republicans voted against the Epstein Files Transparency Act, deepening the backlash.
The controversy has also contributed to escalating infighting within Trump’s base. The former president has recently targeted Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie—both of whom signed the discharge petition, with Massie also co-sponsoring the bill—further inflaming divisions within the Republican coalition.