Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill

While we wait for more movement on the Epstein files, I thought it might be intriguing to hear what it’s like on Capitol Hill right now.

It’s a very different vibe from what it was like last week when the House voted to reopen the government for the first time in 43 days.

It’s bustling. Everywhere you look there are people.

Tours of the Capitol have resumed and little kids are roaming the halls once more in awe of the history.

The tunnels have returned to the normal crowded state with staffers occasionally switching from a brisk walk to a sprint.

And of course, the business of Congress has resumed too. We’ll see more of that later today when the House votes on releasing the Epstein files.

At his press conference this morning, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he has five “top concerns” about the discharge petition coming to a vote today in the House:

1. It fails to protect victim privacy, he says. As many as a thousand victims may be caught up in this and some might not want to come forward
2. The discharge petition could create “new victims”, he adds. It requires the Department of Justice to release information even in cases where it is deemed “not credible” or “false”. This could ruin the reputations of “completely innocent people”, Johnson says
3. The discharge petition “fails to prohibit the release of child sexual abuse materials”
4. It also “jeopardises” future US federal investigations, Johnson says, by violating the confidentiality of certain groups, including whistleblowers. “Who’s going to want to come forward [in future?]” he asks
5. He also cites national security concerns, saying the petition “ignores the principle” that declassification “should always rest with agency that originated the intelligence” so that they can protect their “critical sources and methods”

Despite these “deep concerns”, Johnson says he will be voting for the bill.

Trump may have changed course, but his first move is calculatedpublished at 17:29 GMT

Anthony Zurcher
North America correspondent

Donald Trump has developed a finely tuned sense for what engages and motivates his political base.

What is unusual about the president’s handling of the Epstein files is that he has been decidedly out of step with his base for months and is only now coming around.

As recently as last week, the White House was pressuring a handful of House Republican to withdraw their support from the petition that forced today’s vote.

Now he’s encouraging this party to approve the House measure – but only after it became obvious that rank-and-file Republicans were poised to do exactly that in spite of Trump’s pressure campaign.

Donald Trump may have changed course and backed a House vote to release the Epstein files, but his move – at least so far – has been a calculated one.

While he has told members in the lower chamber to support the measure, he’s yet to offer a similar encouragement to the Senate, which will also have to approve the legislation.

How has Trump’s position changed on releasing the Epstein files?published at 17:20 GMT

By Jake Horton

When asked whether he would sign a bill supporting the release of the Epstein files yesterday, Donald Trump said he was “all for it”.

This followed a Truth Social post on Sunday from the US President which said: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”

This represents a change of course for Trump who since entering office has resisted the files being released, repeatedly calling them a “hoax” by the Democrats.

Trump said he would release the Epstein files while campaigning to be president last year.

When asked on Fox News in June 2024 whether he would declassify the files, he said: “Yeah I would, I guess I would, I think that less so, because you know you don’t know, you don’t want to effect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that world, but I think I would.”

And in September last year when questioned on a podcast about releasing a supposed client list of people who visited Epstein’s island, Trump said: “I would be inclined to do the Epstein, I would have no problem with it.”

Today, the US House will vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would force the justice department to make all files pertaining to Epstein publicly available – but what will today’s vote actually mean?

When is the vote?

The House is now in session and will tackle procedural votes and debates regarding the Epstein bill and other legislation before the chamber. We could see a vote as soon as 14:00 ET (19:00 GMT).

Who is voting?

The House of Representatives is made up of 435 politicians elected by the states they represent. It’s currently made up of 214 Democrats and 219 Republicans, and they’re expected to vote in favour of releasing the files.

Will the files be released?

Not yet. If the bill passes in the House of Representatives, it then goes to the Senate where where Republican majority leader John Thune is under pressure to move to a quick vote.

If it passes the Senate, Trump’s got to sign the bill before it becomes law. The Department of Justice would have 30 days to publicly release the files if the bill does pass.

The press conference from Democratic lawmakers has now concluded, with many of them urging the Trump administration and Senate colleagues to “do the right thing” – and guarantee the release of the Epstein files.

Stay with us as we look ahead to the House vote, which is expected to start at 14:00 local time (19:00 GMT).

Representative Kelly Morrison now steps up and says the “only reason” the House is holding a vote on the release of the files is because the Trump administration is “refusing to comply with a subpoena”.

The Democrat says “the president and his administration are legally required to release the files to Congress, and could do so today, they could havereleased them at any time since he was sworn in”.

She adds that for too long, she believes the government and people in power have “been complicit in covering up the horrific abuses of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell”.

“Today we will say no more.”

US Representative Robert Garcia has just been speaking and says President Trump “has the power to release the files today” but adds that the president “refuses to do so”.

The Democratic lawmaker says there are millions of survivors of sexual abuse watching to see if leaders in the US will do anything to tackle powerful abusers.

He says he’s often asked by survivors of abuse “what’s next”.

Garcia says they believe the truth can be found in the bank records of abusers.

He warns leaders in US financial institutions that if they are hiding records then “we will be coming after them”.

Democratic senator Mark Kelly is now at the mic, and he echoes Grijalva’s remarks by reminding everyone that this bill passing the House today is only the first step.

He calls for leaders in the Senate – the upper chamber of Congress, which will have to review the bill when it passes the House – to promptly schedule a vote once it lands on their desks.

“We’ve got a little more work ahead of us but my hope is Leader Thune will do the right thing,” he says, naming the Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the top Republican in the Senate.

In her address to the media, the newly elected Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva begins by saying survivors are the ones who have forced this vote on the Epstein files.

“Without full transparency, we can’t have justice,” she says.

The Arizona lawmaker says this is not a Democratic or Republican issue – but a “human rights issue”.

Grijalva also stresses that today is “just the first step”.

As a reminder, the bill is widely expected to pass in the House of Representatives later today, but it must also pass in the Senate.

The president must then sign it, and the Department of Justice must implement the law “fully and responsibly”, Grijalva says.

She calls today “a milestone, not the finish line”.

Back outside the Capitol, we’re about to hear from Representative Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat who was elected eight weeks ago in a special election in the state of Arizona.

But it took seven weeks for her to be sworn in, with House Speaker Mike Johnson keeping the House out of session for 53 days to increase pressure on Senate Democrats to agree to a government shutdown compromise.

When Grijalva was eventually sworn in, she immediately signed a discharge petition form calling for the release of the Epstein files.

Her signature was the 218th – the final signing needed to trigger a floor vote. Four Republicans joined the bipartisan effort to call for the vote.

Stay with us as we bring you key lines from her address.

Johnson says he will vote in favour of the bill on the Epstein files today despite his “deep concerns” – and that the vote may be close to unanimous.

But he goes on to accuse the Democrats of blocking efforts to bring the bill to the floor last week for a unanimous consent vote.

The Democrats, however, have pushed back against that line of attack, saying they objected to that measure because the votes would have been anonymous – and they want public accountability.

While the current version of the bill can’t be amended in the House, Johnson says he and his Republican colleagues have issues that he hopes are raised when it reaches the Senate.

“The Democrats have disregarded all these concerns,” he says.

We’re going to move away from Johnson’s press conference and turn our attention to a separate briefing happening on Capitol Hill, where Epstein survivors and Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva are speaking – stay with us.

Mike Johnson says he has talked with his counterpart in the Senate – Majority Leader John Thune.

He says that after the bill passes the House and goes to the Senate, they will “take the time methodically to do what we have not been allowed to do in the House – amend this discharge petition”.

• For context: The House of Representatives – sometimes referred to as the House – is the lower chamber of Congress and is made up of elected representatives from across the country. After a bill passes in the House, it must also be approved by the Senate – the upper chamber of Congress

Several lawmakers used a discharge petition to bring the bill to the House floor, allowing them to go around House leadership.

During his speech this morning, Johnson was complaining about several elements of the discharge petition – including that it fails to protect victim privacy as well as national security concerns – that he hopes the Senate will make changes to.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has just given an overview of what progress has already been made in relation to the Epstein files’ release.

He says the House Oversight Committee “is already producing far more than the discharge petition even anticipates”.

Johnson continues by saying “over 65,000 Epstein file documents” are out in the public, including tens of thousands of pages from the Epstein estate. He says this includes Epstein’s flight logs and daily calendars.

We’re continuing to hear from Mike Johnson, the most powerful lawmaker in the House.

On the Epstein files, the Republican says his party and the president support “maximum transparency”.

But he cautions that they also have a responsibility towards the innocent people and victims who are not properly guarded by the petition.

“And that is why we are so incensed,” about recent efforts to release those files in full, Johnson says.

He urges the process to be undertaken in a way that doesn’t violate the privacy of sexual abuse victims, implicate innocent people, disclose the names of whistleblowers, or undermine national security.

Elsewhere in the US Capitol, House Republicans – some of whom have previously been against a vote on the Epstein files – are also holding a press conference.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, the most powerful lawmaker in the House, is now speaking.

He says his political opponents are forcing a “political show vote”.

“Democrats are trying to use the Epstein matter as a weapon to distract from their own party’s failures,” he says. “They’re trying to attack President Trump,” Johnson says, adding: “he has nothing to do with it.”

We just finished hearing from lawmakers and Epstein survivors on Capitol Hill – with Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene leading the charge in her critiques of Donald Trump, demanding he release all the files related to the convicted sex offender.

Here’s the latest:

• Greene described how Trump branded her a “traitor” for standing with Epstein survivors, to which she accused the president of ripping Maga (Trump’s Make America Great Again movement) apart with his treatment of the Epstein files
• Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips told reporters that she and fellow survivors were launching a political movement she says she hopes will help uncover the systems that have protected predators “for far too long”
• Wendy, a survivor who does not mention her last name, said she and the other women who Epstein abused did not ask to be dragged into political warfare. “Standing on the right side of history is not a comfortable place to be,” she added.
• The brother of Virginia Giuffre, Sky Roberts, cried as he told the crowd that Epstein trafficked his sister to a network of rich and powerful people. He says his sister made a “monumental impact” by speaking out about her abuse

Ana Faguy
Reporting from Capitol Hill

I’ve just arrived on Capitol Hill as the Epstein presser with survivors and lawmakers was ending.

There’s a noticeable difference between watching the presser on my phone and seeing it in the flesh – the emotion.

As survivors leave the scene, I can see them hugging one another and some are wiping tears from their eyes.

This is a day of politics, but it’s clearly an emotional one, too.

Towards the end of the press conference, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene returned to address the crowd.

She says the Epstein row has been one of the “most destructive things” to happen to Trump’s Maga movement since his election in 2016.

The Republican lawmaker, and former Trump ally, goes on to say she was a “day one” supporter of his, beginning more than a decade ago.

Watching this turn into a partisan fight has “ripped Maga apart”, she says.

The press conference of lawmakers and Epstein survivors on Capitol Hill has now ended – but we’re continuing to wrap up key lines from their address.

Thomas Massie, continuing to address crowds gathered on Capitol Hill, says it’s now time to “pull the band aid off”.

He says of the Senate that it might be “tempting for them to get cute” and they could limit the release of the documents.

But he insists that people getting embarrassed by what’s released is the whole point – and Senate Republican leader John Thune needs to bring this “to the floor of the Senate”.

He adds that he believes the vote today in the House of Representatives will show that.