WASHINGTON—President
Trump threw in the towel on dissuading House Republicans from backing a measure to release files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, saying Sunday night that GOP lawmakers should instead embrace the vote.
The vote set for this week had been shaping up as a major test of GOP loyalty to the president, who has kept an iron grip over the party since starting his second term in January. Dozens of Republicans were expected to potentially break with the president when the measure hit the House floor, and Trump’s announcement Sunday night avoids a potential embarrassment for the White House.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax,” Trump wrote on social media, calling it a distraction from GOP successes.
It amounted to a sharp reversal for Trump, who had sought for months to deter Republicans from supporting the measure. But a last-minute push wasn’t getting results, officials said, and risked calling even more attention to the matter as Trump seeks to calm
voter anxiety over the cost of living. Some people thought in hindsight it would have been best to support the release of files from the beginning.
Last week, Trump failed to stop a House petition from
reaching the critical 218th signature—comprising all Democrats plus four Republicans—prompting the House to hold a vote soon mandating that the Justice Department turn over its Epstein-related files.
Trump had been pushing Republicans to stand firm. Democrats “want to waste people’s time, and some of the dumber Republicans like that,” Trump said on Air Force One on Friday. Trump also last week pressed the Justice Department
to launch an investigation into Epstein’s relationship with prominent Democrats.
The vote, sought for months by GOP Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, along with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California, stood to put all House lawmakers on the record. GOP lawmakers have been balancing voters’ outrage over the case against Trump’s claim that the push for more Epstein disclosures is a Democratic effort to hurt Republicans politically.
Khanna, who is hosting an event Tuesday alongside Greene and Massie with Epstein survivors at the Capitol, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” ahead of Trump’s reversal that he was “hoping for 40-plus” Republicans to vote for the measure.
Trump and Epstein socialized together in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump has said he cut off ties long before Epstein was first arrested in 2006; the financier pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution in 2008. Epstein died in 2019 in jail after he was arrested a second time and charged with sex-trafficking conspiracy.
Tension spilled into the open in recent days, with Trump taking aim at fellow Republicans.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) at September rally in support of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. roberto schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
Trump politically disowned Greene, once one of his closest allies, in a series of social-media posts, in part for pursuing the Epstein vote. He called her a traitor and a Republican in Name Only, while encouraging a Republican to challenge her in the 2026 GOP primary.
Greene, who joined Congress in 2021 and had at one point been an ardent Trump ally, said the president was trying to intimidate Republicans ahead of the vote.
“He’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans,” Greene wrote Friday on X. In a Sunday interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Greene continued to question why Trump and other Republicans were resisting calls to release the Epstein files. “That is the question everyone is asking, is, why fight this so hard?” she said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and other leaders had joined Trump in arguing against the need for the Epstein measure, saying a continuing effort by the House Oversight Committee, which publicly released thousands more files last week, is making progress. But once the petition hit 218, Johnson decided to move quickly to get the matter settled.
“It is a political exercise, and we’re going to dispense with that this week,” Johnson said on “Fox News Sunday.”
If the measure passes the House, it would then go to the Senate, where its fate is unclear. If it passed the Senate, Trump would then need to decide whether to sign it into law.
Ahead of Trump’s statement Sunday night, GOP lawmakers including Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Tim Burchett of Tennessee had indicated they would back the measure.
“The train has left the station on this,” Bacon said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Let’s rip the Band-Aid off and get it done. I wish the president realized that. The more the White House pushes back on this, it just looks bad,” he said.
Before Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona was sworn in on Wednesday and became the 218th signature on the petition, Trump personally reached out to the two other Republicans who had signed on, Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
Boebert was summoned to the White House situation room to meet with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kash Patel on the matter. Neither she nor Mace withdrew their names.
Boebert said she had no disagreement with Trump. “President Trump is an amazing man. I stand by him,” she told reporters.
Massie, who has clashed with Trump on Epstein and other issues, said he knows of about two dozen Republicans who were committed to voting in favor of forcing the Justice Department to turn over the Epstein records.
Trump “keeps causing interest to be drawn to it,” Massie said in an interview. Referring to Boebert, he said, “Why would you take a member of Congress into the situation room with the FBI director, the attorney general, and try to flip her vote?”
In a social-media post in recent days, Trump took aim at Massie’s personal life, targeting Massie’s recent marriage to Carolyn Grace Moffa more than a year after his spouse of more than three decades died. “Boy, that was quick!” Trump said, while calling Massie a loser.
Massie responded: “Carolyn blames me, she told me to invite Trump to the wedding and I didn’t.”
More than 20,000 emails from Epstein were made public by House Oversight Committee lawmakers last week,
including messages that reference Trump. None of the emails were to or from Trump. The tranche of emails included exchanges with a broad network of rich and powerful people, including Democratic figures. They also reference people who have been affiliated with Trump. Being mentioned in the emails isn’t an indication of wrongdoing.
Write to Alex Leary at
alex.leary@wsj.com, Scott Patterson at
scott.patterson@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at
Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com
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Appeared in the November 17, 2025, print edition as 'President Turns Up Heat Over Epstein Measure'.
