{"id":104009,"date":"2025-11-20T02:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=104009"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:44:00","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:44:00","slug":"trump-signs-bill-ordering-justice-department-to-release-epstein-files","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=104009","title":{"rendered":"Trump signs bill ordering Justice Department to release Epstein files"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he signed a bill ordering the release of all files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

The bill requires the Justice Department to release all information from its Epstein investigation \u201cin a searchable and downloadable format\u201d within 30 days.<\/p>\n

Trump previously opposed releasing the files, but he changed course last week after facing pushback from Epstein\u2019s victims and members of his own Republican Party.<\/p>\n

With his support, the legislation overwhelmingly cleared both chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, the president accused Democrats of championing the issue to distract attention from the achievements of his administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers in the House passed the legislation with a 427-1 vote. The Senate gave unanimous consent to pass it upon its arrival.<\/p>\n

Some 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein\u2019s estate, including some that directly mention Trump, were released last week.<\/p>\n

They include 2018 messages from Epstein in which he said of Trump: \u201cI am the one able to take him down\u201d and \u201cI know how dirty Donald is\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump was a friend of Epstein\u2019s for years, but the president has said they fell out in the early 2000s, two years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Monday night, Trump said Republicans had \u201cnothing to do with Epstein\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a Democrat problem,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Democrats were Epstein\u2019s friends, all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the president\u2019s signature, the release of the full Epstein files is not guaranteed. Based on the bill\u2019s text, portions could still be withheld if they are deemed to invade personal privacy or relate to an active investigation.<\/p>\n

One of the bill\u2019s architects, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, said he had concerns about some files being withheld.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m concerned that [Trump is] opening a flurry of investigations, and I believe they may be trying to use those investigations as a predicate for not releasing the files. That\u2019s my concern,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"TrumpUS President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he signed a bill ordering the release of all files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[993,12848,1910,4429,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-epstein-files","category-international","category-jeffrey-epstein","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}