The Latest: Trump now says House Republicans should vote to release Epstein files
Nov 17, 2025, 5:20 AM | Updated: 3:36 pm
President Donald Trump said House Republicans should vote to release the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal after previously fighting the proposal as a growing number of those in his own party supported it.
“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,” Trump wrote on social media late Sunday after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.
Trump’s statement followed a fierce fight within the GOP over the files and is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within his own party. The president’s shift is an implicit acknowledgement that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it in the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate.
The Latest:
The bill would force the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in federal prison. Information about Epstein’s victims or ongoing federal investigations would be allowed to be redacted.
Lawmakers who support the bill have been predicting a big win in the House this week with a “deluge of Republicans” voting for it, bucking the GOP leadership and the president.
Acceding to Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s ties to the president’s political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Last week, congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump. None of the men Trump mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
A longtime prosecutor, Pete Skandalakis, announced he will take over the Georgia election interference case against Trump and others, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was removed from the case.
Willis was disqualified over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she’d chosen to lead the case.
The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday lifted all restrictions on commercial flights that were imposed at 40 major airports during the country’s longest government shutdown. The FAA’s unprecedented order to limit traffic in the skies due to safety concerns initially went into effect on Nov. 7.
