When former U.S. President Donald Trump campaigned for a second presidential term last year as the Republican nominee, he and most of his MAGA political base demanded that all sources of information about former Trump friend Jeffrey Epstein should be released to the public. It was a major element of Trump's campaign in order for him to get reelected. Epstein was a New York financier and convicted pedophile who died in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting his court case accusing him of sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide. But many Americans, including me, have been suspicious about that assessment.
As soon as Trump became president again last January, his newly-appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein files on her desk, which were the results of her Department of Justice having previously investigated Epstein over a period of several years. And Ms. Bondi seemed to indicate that she would soon be releasing that information to the American public. She did release some of it, but all of its was old information already known to the public and thus worthless. Months later, Bondi said the files had no incriminating information against anyone and therefore the case was closed.
That started a growing uproar among Republicans who voted for Donald Trump as president the second time. Despite this, President Trump, but also his administration and many Republican leaders constantly characterized these Epstein files as a political ploy by Democrats to harm Trump's reputation and that their release was a worthless pursuit. Trump called it "a hoax." And he often berated such people calling for their release, often calling them degrading names as is his practice against his perceived political enemies. These people included about two dozen women who had come forward in recent years claiming Epstein abused them sexually, in some cases as minors. They claimed he was a sexual predator running a sex trafficking scheme with his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is indeed serving a twenty-year prison sentence for this very thing.
Two leaders of Congress's House Oversight Committee -- Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ro Kannaha of California, brought a bill to the floor to be voted upon which required that these Epstein files possessed by the Department of Justice are to be made public. And last week, Trump apparently was informed by Republican leaders that the vote would prevail. So, Trump announced last Sunday evening that the files should be released and that Republicans in the House should so vote for this. It was a dramatic turn by the president even though he had been so against it for months. It said, "I don't care." Yeah, sure!
Therefore, this afternoon the House voted on the bill and it passed unanimously, with only one vote against it. It was thought the U.S. Senate would then deliberate the issue for some time before having its vote. But apparently, due to the House's unanimous decision, the Senate immediately passed the bill tonight and sent it to the president for his signature. President Trump had been asked numerous times by reporters in recent days, that if the bill came to his desk, would he sign it. He said it would.
So, it has become pretty obvious that President Trump has met his most resistance by Congress and thus caved in to its demand. Where this will lead, nobody knows. A big reason that much of MAGA had turned against Trump on this issue was not only that he had reneged on his promise on the campaign trail to release the DOJ Epstein files if he became president. It was also that the Oversight Committee had subpoenaed all papers and emails by Jeffrey Epstein relating to this issue that were possessed by the Epstein estate. The estate complied, and about 20,000 pages of this information was made public about a week ago. That made a big difference.
In this Epstein estate information, especially in Epstein's many emails, Donald Trump is mentioned more than any of Epstein's many acquaintances. In fact, Jeffrey Epstein reportedly had said Donald Trump was his closest friend. Yet The Donald in recent years had been distancing himself from Epstein and perhaps lying about it sometimes. In later years, Epstein made very derogatory remarks in these emails about his former friend Donald Trump. He said Trump does not have a "moral cell in his body." That corroborates with what Donald Trump's sister, a federal judge, had said about him when first told in 2015 that he was going to run for the presidency. She responded, "He has no morals." Epstein further said in these emails that Trump is a "dangerous" man. He also said he feared for his life because of Trump. The reason is that he claimed he had devastating information about his former friend.
So, it now remains to be seen what will be the outcome of the U.S. Congress's action today, calling for the Epstein files possessed by the Department of Justice to be made public. Massie said today that he fears that Trump may be able to prevent the bill from arriving at this desk. It is because last week Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate his political enemies who reportedly were involved with Epstein, especially former U.S. President and Democrat Bill Clinton. Massie explained that with such an investigation in process, court rules could be applied that require that all DOJ Epstein files be placed on hold during this investigation, thus preventing the president to sign for their release.
But any way you look at this matter, today's vote was a big deal for American politics that went against President Donald Trump, showing that he may be in political free fall. His poll ratings are pretty bad and still falling. He's as they say "underwater" in all approximately a dozen issues which were most prominent in his 2024 campaign for this second presidency. My book about Donald Trump's experience of now twice being the president of the greatest nation on earth may turn out to be more right than I thought, with its title Bible Predicts Trump Fall.