Senate Quickly Green-Lights Bill to Release the Epstein Files

The Senate on Tuesday unanimously agreed to pass a bill to release files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein once the legislation is received from the House, which would result in the bill being sent to President Donald Trump’s desk just hours after the House almost unanimously passed the measure Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer moved to unanimously approve the bill on the Senate floor Tuesday night, and if Trump signs it, the Department of Justice will be forced to make public any additional files on Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

“The motion says that when the House sends the bill over, it automatically goes to the president’s desk,” Schumer said Tuesday evening. “The Senate cannot delay, it cannot amend, it cannot change it in any way we deemed it passed … This was a very good thing, and Democrats fought and fought and fought to have this happen.”

He added: “The president has to sign it. You never know with him, he said he would. Let’s wait and see … we have to make sure that the whole all of the documents are released, that there are no games.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, shortly after the House vote Tuesday afternoon, said he wanted to move quickly on the legislation and that he did not expect to amend the bill, despite Speaker Mike Johnson urging the Senate to do so. The GOP leader said he ran a hotline on the bill, a procedure meant to speedily check if any members of one party have objections to a piece of legislation.

“When a bill passes the House 427-1, and the president said he’ll sign it into law, I’m not sure there’s going to be a need for or a desire for an amendment process over here,” Thune told reporters.

Thune said he intends to move on the bill “as soon as we can figure out kind of where our members are.”

The bicameral push to quickly deliver the legislation to the president’s desk comes after months of delays, particularly in the House, where GOP leadership slow-walked a vote for the measure despite widespread support. The pace changed after Trump on Monday called for a release of the files, a move he’d previously opposed.

The Senate agreeing to pass the bill without objection was somewhat unexpected. Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the lawmakers who spearheaded the discharge petition for the files in the House, said earlier Tuesday that he was concerned the Senate could stall the bill or even amend it to protect some of Epstein’s co-conspirators.

And before unanimous consent was granted, Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley had a piece of legislation ready, called the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that mirrored the House-passed bill. At least one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul — a Kentuckian known for bucking Trump in a similar fashion to Massie — had announced he would co-sponsor the legislation.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin said shortly before the unanimous consent request: “Once the president said ‘release it,’ it was ‘release it.’”