Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill requiring his administration to publicly release federal records related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Although Trump had long possessed the authority to disclose many of these documents on his own, he declined to do so for months.
In a social media post announcing that he had signed the legislation, Trump accused Democrats of exploiting the Epstein matter for political gain.
“Democrats have used the ‘Epstein’ issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our amazing victories," he wrote, framing the bill as something he agreed to only because Congress was moving ahead regardless of his position.
Under the new law, the Justice Department must release every file and communication tied to Epstein, along with any information connected to the inquiry into his 2019 death in federal custody.
The department will have 30 days to comply.
While the bill does permit redactions relating to Epstein’s victims or to protect ongoing investigations, it explicitly bars the officials of the Department of Justice from withholding documents due to “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity."
The push to compel the disclosure of the Epstein files began as an unlikely effort led by an unusual mix of lawmakers, Democrats, a Republican adversary of Trump, and a handful of former loyalists who broke ranks.
As recently as last week, the administration was still trying to halt the momentum.
Officials even summoned Representative Lauren Boebert, one of the Republican supporters of the bill, to the Situation Room to discuss the issue, though she refused to change her stance.
By the weekend, however, Trump shifted course sharply, recognising that Congress was moving forward with or without his cooperation. He argued that the continued focus on Epstein had become a needless distraction from the Republican agenda.
The House overwhelmingly approved the legislation in a 427-1 vote. The only lawmaker to oppose it, Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana, warned that its provisions could unintentionally expose private information about individuals who had no wrongdoing but were mentioned in federal investigative materials.
The Senate later adopted the bill unanimously, bypassing a formal roll-call vote.
Trump has long been known to have been acquainted with Epstein, the disgraced financier who socialised among powerful political and business circles.
Still, Trump has repeatedly maintained that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities and that he severed ties with him years ago.
Before Trump returned to the White House for a second term, several of his political allies helped amplify conspiracy theories surrounding the government’s handling of the Epstein case, suggesting that authorities were concealing damaging information contained within these files.
