This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 18 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
A bill that will compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files is officially on its way to Donald Trump’s desk — and I cannot possibly overstate how remarkable that is.
House Speaker Mike Johnson did everything he possibly could to stop this from happening, sending lawmakers home for a month over the summer and refusing to swear in a duly elected member of Congress for weeks.
Trump tried desperately to stop this from happening. The president’s henchman tried to strong-arm a Republican member of Congress in the Situation Room.
None of it was enough. None of it worked. They tried everything they could to stop it, and they failed.
“I want to relay this message to you,” Robson said, addressing Trump. “I am traumatized. I am not stupid.”
We would not be here, at this moment, without the activism of so many fearless survivors who have shared their incredibly traumatic personal stories and pushed Congress to finally take action.
In the end, the pressure from Trump and Johnson and all of their Republican allies was no match for the pressure from those survivors.
Just a week ago, there were only four Republicans in the House supporting the release of files relating to the investigation against the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — four Republicans who stuck their necks out and resisted a tremendous pressure campaign by Trump and his administration.
But fast-forward one week, and the Epstein Files Transparency Act has passed both the House and the Senate with only a single lawmaker voting “no.” (Just for the record, that “no” vote came from Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, who will have a lot of explaining to do in the coming days.)
The bill itself is extraordinary in its potential impact but also pretty straightforward in its actual text. It requires Attorney General Pam Bondi to “release all documents and records in possession of the Department of Justice relating to Jeffrey Epstein” no later than 30 days after it’s enacted.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act is now on its way to Trump’s desk, where he can either sign or veto it, which feels like it wouldn’t sit well with Congress, given that it passed with a veto-proof majority.
In other words, Congress forced Trump’s hand. Even the president himself seemed to know where this was all headed. When it became clear he could not stop the momentum behind this bill, he decided to try to save face and told Republicans they should vote in favor of releasing the files.
Given just how desperately the president fought to keep these files sealed, I’m pretty skeptical of his sudden about-face, and I don’t think I am the only one.
During a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, survivor Haley Robson spoke directly to Trump. “And to the president of the United States of America, who is not here today, I want to send a clear message to you: While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” she said.
“I want to relay this message to you,” Robson continued. “I am traumatized. I am not stupid.”
There is a good reason to question whether Trump had a change of heart. The president doesn’t actually need Congress to compel him to release these files. He could have done that himself at any moment — and he didn’t.
That’s not to mention it was just last week that we got a trove of more than 20,000 emails from the Epstein estate, and Trump’s name appeared more than any other figure in those emails, with Epstein himself alleging that Trump “knew about the girls.”
It’s hard to imagine that, after all that, Trump suddenly wants even more Epstein documents to become public.
Then there’s the investigation that Trump ordered into several prominent Democrats over their alleged ties to Epstein, which could just be a ploy to block the release of those files.
According to the text of the bill just passed by Congress, the attorney general can withhold any files that “would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.”
So could Trump try to use that provision, along with his new investigation, to block the release of any files he doesn’t want out there?
The survivors have pledged to keep fighting until everyone involved in Epstein’s despicable crimes is brought to justice.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of the few members of the president’s party who has pushed for the release of these files from the start, is already warning that Trump could use that loophole to conceal the files.
“If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can’t be released,” Massie told ABC News. “So this might be a big smoke screen, these investigations, to open a bunch of them as a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files.”
Now, it’s clear this fight isn’t over. But Massie and his fellow lawmakers deserve a lot of credit for getting this bill passed. However, the people who deserve the most credit, far more than any elected official, are the survivors, who have been relentless and courageous and have pledged to keep fighting until everyone involved in Epstein’s despicable crimes is brought to justice.
So while their fight continues, those survivors have done something few thought possible: They took on the most powerful person in the world, and they won.
Allison Detzel contributed.
