{"id":45586,"date":"2025-11-20T02:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45586\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T02:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T02:22:11","slug":"donald-trump-signs-bill-to-release-dojs-jeffrey-epstein-files-nbc-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/45586\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump signs bill to release DOJ\u2019s Jeffrey Epstein files \u2013 NBC New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump<\/a> signed a bill Wednesday to compel\u00a0the Justice Department<\/a>\u00a0to release\u00a0files related to Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, capping off a monthslong bipartisan push in Congress that initially met resistance from the president and sparked sharp divisions within the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Trump had previously said he would sign the measure into law, even as he continued calling the largely Democrat-led push to release the files a “hoax.”<\/p>\n

In announcing the bill signing\u00a0on Truth Social<\/a>, Trump took more digs at Democrats, repeating his “hoax” characterization and arguing that they were seeking “to try and distract” from his administration<\/a>‘s accomplishments.<\/p>\n

The House overwhelmingly supported passing the bill on Tuesday, with only Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., voting against the legislation. Later in the day, the Senate agreed to\u00a0send the measure to Trump\u00a0<\/a>by unanimous consent, which it did on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The bill requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all unclassified records related to Epstein withinc 30 days. The law permits Bondi to withhold or redact information that could jeopardize a federal investigation.<\/p>\n

Last week, Bondi\u00a0agreed to the president\u2019s request<\/a>\u00a0for her department to investigate Epstein\u2019s connections to Democrats and others. In his Truth Social post Wednesday night, Trump referred to that effort, writing, \u201cPerhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Justice Department previously said<\/a>\u00a0that it \u201cdid not uncover evidence\u00a0<\/a>that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.\u201d Asked during a Wednesday news conference what had changed, she said “new information, additional information,” but did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

The Epstein files and the president’s handling of the controversy have sparked rare disunity among Republicans in Congress and Trump’s supporters. The legislation was co-led by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and garnered vocal support from Democrats and several Republican lawmakers including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had\u00a0a public falling-out<\/a>\u00a0with Trump.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Trump reversed his longstanding opposition to the legislative effort and\u00a0called on House Republicans<\/a>\u00a0to support the bill, saying, “we have nothing to hide.” Still, he continued referring to the scandal as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, backers of the legislation and survivors of Epstein held news conference on Capitol Hill to urge lawmakers to support the release of the files. Some of the survivors directly criticized the president, with one,\u00a0Jena-Lisa Jones,<\/a>\u00a0urging him to “please stop making this political.”<\/p>\n

The Epstein files surged into the spotlight last week when Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released more than\u00a020,000 pages of documents<\/a>\u00a0from Epstein’s estate after Democratic lawmakers released emails from Epstein that referred to Trump.<\/p>\n

In one of the emails, Epstein\u00a0claimed in 2019\u00a0<\/a>that Trump “knew about the girls,” but he didn\u2019t accuse Trump of any wrongdoing. In another email from 2011, Epstein referred to Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked” and said that the now-president “spent hours” at Epstein’s home with a redacted name labeled as a “victim.”<\/p>\n

Trump has consistently denied involvement in any of Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to the emails during a press briefing, saying that the emailed “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”<\/p>\n

Trump was friends with Epstein in the 1980s and ’90s, but had a falling-out with him in the early 2000s, accusing Epstein of\u00a0hiring away<\/a>\u00a0young female employees from his resort\u2019s spa. Trump has said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. The White House has maintained that\u00a0Trump threw Epstein out\u00a0<\/a>of his club \u201cfor being a creep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges of soliciting prostitution with a minor. He died by suicide in jail in 2019 as he waited to go to trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.<\/p>\n

Scott Wong,\u00a0Melanie Zanona,\u00a0Kyle Stewart,\u00a0Brennan Leach,\u00a0Zo\u00eb Richards\u00a0and\u00a0Tara Prindiville\u00a0contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump signed a bill Wednesday to compel\u00a0the Justice Department\u00a0to release\u00a0files related to Jeffrey Epstein, capping off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,6769,9,11,10,655],"class_list":{"0":"post-45586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-trump-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}