Epstein affair | Representatives vote to release documents

(Washington) The House of Representatives voted Tuesday for the publication by the authorities of the investigation file on the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, after the change of heart of Donald Trump who long pressured the Republicans to prevent the vote.

The bill, adopted by 427 votes for and 1 against, aims to order the Department of Justice “to publish all documents and archives” in its possession concerning the New York financier, who died in prison in 2019 before his trial for sex crimes.

She is now heading to the Senate, where her fate is more uncertain.

For months, Donald Trump had led a real campaign to thwart the holding of this vote in the House, with potentially embarrassing consequences for the president.

The Republican billionaire reiterated Tuesday that he had “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” assuring that he had fired the financier from Mar-a-Lago, his luxury club in Florida, because he was “a sick pervert.”

Figures of the New York jet set, the two businessmen were close from the end of the 1980s until their falling out in the early 2000s, and before proceedings were launched a few years later against the financier, accused of having organized a network of sexual exploitation of underage girls.

“Nothing to hide”

Faced with the outcry and growing defections in his camp before the vote, Donald Trump finally turned around on Sunday and gave his support to the text.

“We have nothing to hide,” said the president, who once again rebelled against what he considers to be a “hoax” set up by the democratic opposition.

The American president did not, however, explain why he did not order his Secretary of Justice to publish these documents directly, without going through a vote in Congress.

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” he reiterated Tuesday.

During a press conference in front of the Capitol, ahead of the vote expected in the afternoon, several victims of Jeffrey Epstein spoke, often with emotion, to call on Congress to adopt the text.

“The state must never side with predators,” said one of them, Lara Blume McGee, who said she spoke for the first time in public about how Jeffrey Epstein had sexually assaulted her when she was beginning her career as a model in New York.

With its adoption in the House, the bill is now heading to the Senate, although it is not certain that the Republican majority leader, John Thune, will decide to put it to a vote.

Such a decision would, however, expose the presidential camp, and the White House in particular, to renewed criticism of its management of the Epstein file.

Investigations

After promising his supporters during his campaign shattering revelations, Donald Trump has done everything to extinguish the controversy since his return to power, provoking anger even in his “MAGA” movement.

The affair was further relaunched last week by the publication of emails from the New York financier, with a particularly full address book.

In messages revealed by Democratic parliamentarians, Jeffrey Epstein claims that Donald Trump “knew about the girls” who had been sexually assaulted and that he had even “spent several hours” with one of them.

But the American president, who has never been prosecuted by the courts in this matter, assured that he knew nothing of this. He also counterattacked by calling for an investigation into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and certain Democratic figures, including Bill Clinton.

Republican elected official Marjorie Taylor Greene, to whom Donald Trump publicly withdrew her support over the weekend due in particular to her support for the bill, expressed her skepticism on Tuesday, alongside victims of Jeffrey Epstein, in the face of these investigations.

Because while these are in progress, certain documents could legally not be published.

According to Marjorie Taylor Greene, after Congress, “the real test will be: will the Justice Department release the documents?” Or will they remain tied down by these investigations? »