On Sunday, November 16, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump reversed his previous opposition to the publication of papers pertaining to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and pushed his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote in favor of doing so.
Following House Speaker Mike Johnson’s earlier statement that he thought a vote on the release of Justice Department documents in the Epstein case should assist dispel claims that Mr. Trump was involved in the abuse and trafficking of minors, Mr. Trump posted on his Truth Social.
Mr. Trump wrote, “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” on Sunday evening. “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’.”
Despite the fact that Mr. Trump and Epstein were pictured together decades ago, the President claims that the two men had a falling out prior to Epstein’s convictions. The discredited financier thought Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” according to emails made public by a House committee last week, though it was unclear what that meant. Following his recent dismissal of the Epstein files as a Democratic smear campaign, Mr. Trump has directed the Department of Justice to look into the connections between prominent Democrats and Epstein.
A divide with some of Mr. Trump’s congressional friends has arisen over the dispute over the release of additional Epstein-related records, a topic that Mr. Trump himself campaigned on.
Many of Mr. Trump’s most devoted fans think the government is hiding important information concerning Epstein, a convicted sexual offender who committed suicide while incarcerated in 2019, that would show the late financier’s connections to influential public leaders. Late on Friday, November 14, 2025, Mr. Trump withdrew his support for U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who had long been one of his most ardent supporters in Congress, after she criticized Republicans on a number of topics, including how the Epstein files were handled.
The initial sponsor of the petition for a vote on the release of the papers, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna of California, stated on Sunday that he anticipated more than 40 Republicans to vote in favor.
With 219 seats in the House compared to 214 for Democrats, Republicans have a majority.
