BBC News: 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.
The bill requires the justice department to release all information from its Epstein investigation “in a searchable and downloadable format” within 30 days.
Trump previously opposed releasing the files, but he changed course last week after facing pushback from Epstein’s victims and members of his own Republican Party.
With his support, the legislation overwhelmingly cleared both chambers of Congress, the House of Representatives and Senate, on Tuesday.
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.
“Perhaps 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!” he wrote.
Although a congressional vote was not required to release the files – Trump could have ordered the release on his own – lawmakers in the House passed the legislation with a 427-1 vote. The Senate gave unanimous consent to pass it upon its arrival, sending the bill to Trump for his signature.
The Epstein files subject to release under the legislation are documents from criminal investigations into the financier, including transcripts of interviews with victims and witnesses, and items seized in raids of his properties. Those materials include internal justice department communications, flight logs, and people and entities connected to Epstein.
The files are different from the more than 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate released by Congress last week, including some that directly mention Trump.
Those include 2018 messages from Epstein in which he said of Trump: “I am the one able to take him down” and “I know how dirty donald is”.
Trump was a friend of Epstein’s 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.
Speaking to reporters on Monday night, Trump said Republicans had “nothing to do with Epstein”.
“It’s really a Democrat problem,” he said. “The Democrats were Epstein’s friends, all of them.”
