(Washington) The US House of Representatives must vote Tuesday on a text to force the Trump administration to be more transparent in the Epstein affair. A vote in the form of a challenge to the Republican president, who exerted strong pressure to prevent it before having to give up.
The bill aims to order the Department of Justice “to release all documents and records” in its possession concerning the New York financier, who died in prison in 2019 before his trial for sex crimes.
After leading a real public and behind-the-scenes campaign for weeks to thwart the holding of this vote in the House, Donald Trump made an about-face on Sunday by finally supporting it.
“We have nothing to hide,” said the president, who however once again rebelled against what he considers to be a “hoax” set up by the opposition, asserting again on Monday that the Republicans had “nothing to do with Epstein”, while “the Democrats, yes, all his friends were Democrats”.
His change of position came as one of the authors of the bill, elected Republican Thomas Massie, said over the weekend that he expected “100 or more” of his colleagues from the majority to join him in favor of this text.
“Total transparency”
“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. This former model accused Jeffrey Epstein of having sexually assaulted her in 1997 in a California hotel.
For the leader of the Democratic minority in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and the Americans “deserve total transparency” in this affair.
“This week, the House will act decisively, the Senate must act, and Donald Trump must just step aside and let fate decide,” he urged from the Capitol.
PHOTO SAUL LOEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
Because after its probable adoption in the House, the bill will head to the Senate, without certainty, however, that the Republican majority leader, John Thune, will decide to submit 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.
After promising his supporters during his campaign shattering revelations, Donald Trump has done everything to extinguish the controversy since his return to power, provoking incomprehension and 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.
Larry Summers, Secretary of Finance under Bill Clinton who became president of Harvard University, announced Monday that he was retiring from public life after the publication of his electronic correspondence with Mr. Epstein.
“Smoke screen”
In other emails 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.
The financier was close to the Republican billionaire from the end of the 1980s, when the two businessmen were figures of the New York jet set, before their falling out in the early 2000s.
But the American president, who has never been prosecuted by the courts in this matter, assured Friday that he knew nothing about it.
The Republican also counterattacked by calling for an investigation into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and certain Democratic figures, including Bill Clinton.
Thomas Massie, a frequent critic of Donald Trump, expressed his concern on Sunday about the president’s announcement.
“If investigations are underway in certain areas, these documents cannot be published,” the elected Republican declared on ABC News.
“So it could be a smokescreen, these investigations: opening a certain number of them as a last-ditch attempt to prevent the publication of the Epstein file,” he added.
Ahead of the vote, Thomas Massie also issued a warning to elected officials who would be tempted to vote against his bill: “The traces of this vote will survive beyond the presidency of Donald Trump.”
