In a Congress where bipartisanship is supposedly dead, the House just delivered a 427-1 landslide Tuesday for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, forcing the Justice Department to declassify and release every last scrap of its Jeffrey Epstein investigation files — no redactions for "embarrassment" or "political sensitivity" allowed.
What a difference an election makes.
The bill, which now heads to an uncertain fate in the Senate, requires the Attorney General to hand over all records related to Epstein’s sex-trafficking probe, including grand jury materials that federal rules have shielded for generations.
Only Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., voted no.
"What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today," Higgins said in a statement after the vote. "It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America. As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people — witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt.
Higgins noted ongoing Republican-led efforts that have already released more than 60,000 pages.
"The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case," he continued. "That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House."
The measure reached the floor only after Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, used a rare discharge petition to bypass Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
President Trump, who says he will sign the bill despite months of opposition, banned Epstein from his properties years before the financier’s 2008 conviction and has denied any wrongdoing.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has not committed to bringing the legislation to the floor.
Democrats who spent years looking the other way while their own donors and leaders cozied up to Epstein now wave the transparency banner like born-again saints — all while crafting a bill so reckless it throws innocent witnesses and victims under the bus just to keep the scandal alive.
Justice for Epstein’s survivors? Don’t hold your breath. Political theater dressed up as righteousness? That’s the only thing guaranteed here.
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