US House of Representatives (equivalent to the National Assembly) today will vote on a bill forcing the Trump administration to be more transparent on the Epstein affair. The vote took the form of a challenge to the Republican president that put intense pressure on him to prevent it before he had to concede. The proposed law aims to order the Justice Department “to release all documents and records” it has regarding the New York financier, who died in prison in 2019 before being tried for sex crimes.
After leading a weeks-long public and behind-the-scenes campaign to thwart holding a House vote, Donald Trump made a U-turn on Sunday by finally backing it. “We have nothing to hide,” said Trump, who once again rebelled against what he considered a “hoax” perpetrated by the opposition, and reiterated on Monday that Republicans “had nothing to do with Epstein,” while “Democrats, yeah, all his friends are Democrats.”
His change of stance came when one of the bill’s authors, Republican-elect Thomas Massie, said over the weekend that he expected “100 or more” of his colleagues in the majority to join him in supporting the bill.
“As a victim, I implore you to release these documents once and for all,” Alicia Arden pleaded at a press conference Monday in Los Angeles. The former model accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexually assaulting her in 1997 at a California hotel.
At the same time, one of the people connected to the Epstein affair chose to throw in the towel: Larry Summers, the American Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton who was president of Harvard University in the 2000s, announced this Monday that he was withdrawing from public life after the publication of his electronic correspondence with the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. “I take full responsibility for my ill-advised decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” he said in a statement. “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will step back from public engagement as part of a broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with those closest to me. »
“Donald Trump must step aside”
For the Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and the American people “deserve total transparency” in this affair. “This week, the House will act decisively, the Senate must act, and Donald Trump must step aside and let fate decide,” he urged from the Capitol.
Because after possible passage in the House, the bill will go to the Senate, but without certainty that the Republican majority leader, John Thune, will decide to put it to a vote. But such a decision would expose the president’s camp, and the White House in particular, to new criticism of his handling of the Epstein case.
Having promised his supporters during his campaign to reveal shocking revelations, Donald Trump has done everything to quell controversy since his return to power, sparking incomprehension and anger even within the “MAGA” movement he founded. The affair was relaunched last week with the publication of emails from the New York financier, with a very comprehensive address book.
In the emails, disclosed by Democratic Party lawmakers, Jeffrey Epstein claimed that Donald Trump “knew about girls” who had been sexually assaulted and that he even “spent a few hours” with one of them. The financier has been close to the Republican billionaire since the late 1980s, when both businessmen were still figures on the New York jet set, before their falling out in the early 2000s.
Ahead of the vote, Thomas Massie issued a warning to elected officials who might be tempted to vote against the bill: “This voting trail will persist even after the presidency of Donald Trump.”
