Epstein bill heads to Trump's desk for signature after overwhelming passage

Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News on Nov 19, 2025

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The bill requiring release of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein case headed to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature Wednesday after a lightning-quick, near-unanimous passage in both houses of the usually deeply divided Congress.

Trump has said he’ll sign the measure after it raced through the House, which voted 427-1 in favor, and the Senate, which rubber stamped it by unanimous consent.

Despite voting for the bill as it was written, House Speaker Mike Johnson said late Tuesday that he was “deeply disappointed” the Senate did not make unspecified tweaks to the bill.

He suggested Trump has misgivings about the measure, although he insisted he wasn’t predicting the president would not sign it.

“We both have concerns about it, so we’ll see,” Johnson said as he left a White House dinner for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It wasn’t clear when Trump might act on the bill or how quickly any new Epstein-related information might be released.

Enacting the bill would cap a stunning defeat for Trump, who fought for months against the push to expose more documents after reportedly being told his name appears many times in the files related to the child sex-trafficking case.

Even as Trump backed the bill to release the files, he continued to deride the Epstein scandal a “Democrat hoax” to tarnish his reputation.

The bill’s passage marks a victory for Epstein survivors and a small bipartisan group of House lawmakers who last summer launched a longshot effort to force release of the files.

The lawmakers introduced an unusual petition in July to maneuver around Johnson’s refusal at Trump’s behest to permit an up-or-down vote on the bill.

The effort eventually won the backing of a majority of the 435 House members, including all Democrats and a handful of Republicans, forcing Johnson to call a vote.

That opened a floodgate of support, with Trump himself bowing to overwhelming pressure to agree not to oppose the bill.

In the end, only one lawmaker, Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, a far right-wing Trump stalwart, voted against it, claiming the measure could set a bad precedent.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who had previously been non-committal about even considering the bill, quickly changed his tune and agreed to back the demand by his Democratic counterpart Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, to grant unanimous consent to approve it.