President Donald Trump on Sunday night encouraged House Republicans to vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files and move on from what he calls a “Democrat Hoax,” marking a stark reversal from his efforts to discredit the effort.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s reversal comes as expectations of mass GOP defections grew ahead of a House vote this week on an attempt to force the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein case files.
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California last week gathered enough signatures on a discharge petition to force such a vote.
Massie and Khanna appeared optimistic earlier Sunday about their bill’s chances of passing, insisting there was growing support among the GOP in the House.
Massie said he thought 100 or more Republicans in the House could break with Trump, who last week appealed to a handful of Republicans who signed on to the Kentucky lawmaker’s discharge petition effort.
“I think we could have a deluge of Republicans. There could be 100 or more. I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote,” Massie said on ABC’s “This Week.”
CNN reported last week that GOP leaders were bracing for a significant number of Republicans to break from Trump and support the bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson previously called the effort a “moot point” given an ongoing House Oversight Committee investigation, which has released thousands of documents, including from Epstein’s estate. On Sunday, Johnson appeared to preview Trump’s message to House Republicans, telling “Fox News Sunday,” “We’ll just get this done and move it on. There’s nothing to hide.”
The decision to move quickly with a floor vote, which is expected on Tuesday, came shortly after thousands of new Epstein emails were released by the oversight panel last week.
Trump said late last week that he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to a slew of high-profile figures linked to the Democratic Party, representing the president’s most significant effort to discredit the push to release all of the files. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday she would launch the investigation, assigning the US attorney in New York’s Southern District, to lead it. The move raised fears among critics that the president was seeking to use the Justice Department to politicize any investigation.
Massie said earlier Sunday he thought Trump was “trying to protect a bunch of rich and powerful friends, billionaires, donors to his campaign, friends in his social circles” and told his fellow GOP lawmakers that the “record of this vote will last longer” than Trump’s presidency.
Khanna, who said he’s hoping around 40 Republican lawmakers will vote to release all the Epstein files this week, insisted earlier Sunday that Trump had been “sowing the seeds for his own lame-duck presidency” by going after Republicans who support the release of the files, such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“He’s out of touch with his own base,” Khanna said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” before Trump urged Republicans to vote for the bill.
Greene, once a staunch Trump ally, has fallen out of favor with the president over her support for the release of files. Trump said Friday that he would no longer support and endorse Greene, who is running for reelection in 2026.
Greene, for her part, lamented the fracture, insisting on Sunday that the rift “has all come down to the Epstein files.” She told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that she didn’t understand why the president was fighting the files’ release, as she doesn’t believe he has been implicated in anything illegal.
“That is the question everyone is asking, is, ‘Why fight this so hard?’” Greene said.
While the House bill to release the files is expected to pass, it awaits an uncertain fate in the Senate. Majority Leader John Thune previously told CNN he did not think the chamber needs to pass the legislation, citing the Justice Department’s release of thousands of pages related to the case.
When asked Sunday whether he thinks the Senate would take up the effort, Massie said he hopes Thune will “do the right thing,” insisting that “pressure is going to be there if we get a big vote in the House.”
CNN’s Annie Grayer and Manu Raju contributed to this report.
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