Rabat – Late on the evening of November 18, the US Congress passed legislation that would force the release of the Epstein files, or records held by the Department of Justice that relate to deceased, disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The records are said to implicate many rich, powerful world leaders.
Now the order goes to US President Donald Trump’s desk for final passage. He has previously said that he would sign the order if it came to him.
Nevertheless, Trump has recently taken a series of unusual actions connected with the bedlam over the Epstein files: after the US government shutdown concluded and the House of Representatives reached the number of signatories necessary to vote to release the files, he and his staffers stated repeatedly that the Epstein files were a “Democrat hoax” and a “distraction” from his presidential work.
At the same time, Trump – who based some of his 2024 campaign on releasing the Epstein files – made phone calls to two Republican Congresspeople who had pledged their vote to open the files. He even met with one of them in the White House Situation Room, a room typically used for emergencies and classified conversations.
He also entered a feud with Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.), a former Trump loyalist who broke with him over her support for the files’ release. In response, he called her “wacky” and withdrew his endorsement of her.
Then on Sunday, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that Republicans “have nothing to hide” and that he supported the release of the files. This ushered in the House of Representatives’ overwhelmingly successful vote on the issue – with 427 voting in favor of the files’ release and only 1, a GOP member who stated that the files’ release would hurt victims, voting against.
Trump’s stake in the matter was made more crucial by last weekend’s release of some 23,000 emails in connection with Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. These emails – which differ from the files in that they are held by private lawyers in charge of Epstein’s property, not records held by the Department of Justice – threw American politics into a frenzy. They indicated apparently close relationships between Epstein and some of the world’s most powerful men.
One of the over 23,000 released emails features Epstein’s claim that President Trump “knew about the girls,” referring to the underaged girls that Epstein and his now-imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, trafficked. Another states that Epstein supposedly had pictures of Trump with “girls in bikinis in [his] kitchen.” In another, Epstein says President Trump does not have “one decent cell in his body.”
In addition to President Trump, the emails also mention former President Bill Clinton, one of Trump’s political opponents. Like Trump, Clinton has denied any wrongdoing, though flight records released earlier in the year indicated that Clinton had traveled on Epstein’s private plane. Trump has further alleged that Clinton traveled to Epstein’s infamous private island, where sex offenses reportedly took place.
The emails released earlier this week include Epstein’s refutation: “Clinton was NEVER EVER there, never… [The story was] crafted much… out of whole cloth.”
Emails also seem to implicate Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, or former Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, who was recently stripped of many of his royal titles over allegations that he was one of Epstein’s clients and committed sex crimes.
Epstein wrote in one of his emails that Prince Andrew had met and taken photographs with Virginia Giuffre on Epstein’s private plane. She had claimed that Mountbatten-Windsor had sex with her three times when she was a teenager. He denied her allegations and reached an out-of-court settlement with her in 2022. She committed suicide in April this year amid renewed fervor over the files.
Mountbatten-Windsor has not been convicted of any wrongdoing.
What is the future of the Epstein files?
If Trump signs the bill to release the files, then the Department of Justice will be compelled to release everything that they have that is not under investigation. This is because, when Trump called for House Republicans to release the Epstein files, he also announced a Department of Justice investigation into the files with a focus on political adversaries like Clinton.
His announcement triggered concern over the integrity of the files’ release.
“If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can’t be released,” said House Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the few Republicans who have pledged their signatures to the release of the files. “This might be a big smokescreen, these investigations… a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files.”
Furthermore, the bill passed by Congress included language that allows US Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom Trump appointed to head the Justice Department, to redact or withhold details that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing persecution.”
At the beginning of President Trump’s second term earlier this year, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who heads the Justice Department, said that she had the files in her possession – “sitting on my desk.”
Not long after, she and Trump participated in a meeting, the details of which have not been disclosed. She later told the media that her investigation had found no “incriminating ‘client list.’” She then released a small portion of the files, including many that had already been made public, and stated that no further files on the matter would be publicly released. It was this remark that prompted a stormy reaction from both Democrats and Republicans alike – the latter having voted for Trump on a platform that partially involved releasing the files.
If Trump signs the bill opening the files, then the Department of Justice is required to release them within 30 days.
