Congress Votes To Force DOJ To Release The Epstein Files

The House and Senate have voted to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files. Mike Lillis, Senior Reporter for The Hill, joins us with how it all unfolded and what might come next as the bill heads to Trump's desk today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go to the highline and bring in senior reporter
for the Hill, Mike Lillis. You can find all of
his work and a whole lot more at the Hill
dot com. So, Mike, great to talk to you this morning.
And you were there on Capitol Hill yesterday. Correct me
if I'm wrong. What was the scene like, what was
the vibe there like ahead of that Epstein files vote?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, that's right, Good morning, Ryan, Happy to be with you.
You know, it was a zoo up there yesterday. It
was a stunning turn of events in the Capitol. It
was electric, and you know, it was tense if you
were on one side and the others were ecstatic. Who
the ones who wanted to see this bill pass? But
after months and months and months of this bill going nowhere,
suddenly there's this enormous burst of activity and it passes

(00:45):
through the House and the Senate in a single afternoon. So,
you know, a lot. There was a lot going on there.
But of course, the lead up to it, it would not
have happened without this obscure procedural tool, this discharge petition
that forces votes on bills that are opposed the majority party.
You know, for months, President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson
had opposed this bill. They blocked it in many, you know,

(01:07):
any way that they could. In the end, they couldn't
get the Republicans to take their names off of that petition,
and it had enough support to force the bill to
the floor. It also wouldn't have happened, you know, probably
more importantly, without the involvement of Epstein's alleged victims. You know,
this is a group group of women who they came
twice to the Capitol. They were making the rounds on

(01:28):
cable news. They really put a face to the abuse,
and they just made it tough for Speaker Mike Johnson
and the Republicans to continue to oppose the legislation, you know,
and claim any kind of moral high grounds. I think
that was kind of a key factor as well. You know,
in the end, the vote in the House was four
hundred and twenty seven to one, not even close, and

(01:48):
it was unanimous in the Senate. Trump says he's going
to sign it. So now we see what happens. But
it was quite a day yesterday on Capitol Hill.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
There was also an interesting development with House Speaker Mike Johnson,
and he said that he thought there needed to be
changes to the measure made by the Senate, but then
Senate ma Jordy Letter john Thune was like, yeah, no,
we're not doing that, and it passed without them even
having to do a vote on That's.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Right, and a couple of reasons for that. You know,
Johnson's argument was not new. He's been saying that for months.
The reason we can't pass this legislation is it does
not have the protections for some of the victims. You know,
there have been a couple dozen victims who have come
out publicly, but there's supposed to be you know, a
thousand women who were abused in this racket, and many

(02:38):
of them do not want to want their identities release.
They want to remain anonymous, and so Johnson has said
that the bill doesn't do enough to protect those people
that their identities might be released. There's also concern that
some others who were wrapped up in the investigation, maybe
associates of Epstein who did not commit crimes, those names. Also,

(02:59):
they don't want to release those names because then it's
a guilt by association, and you know, you ruin your
reputation forever, just just even if you haven't done anything wrong,
so some concerns about leaking that information. You know, the
question for Mike Johnson is if it was such a
horrible bill, why do you vote for it. If you
wanted to changees, you could have demanded them. And I

(03:20):
think that the sponsors of the bill, Tom Massey and
Rocanna would have worked with him on that. Of course,
the reason he didn't want to do it is because
he opposed to the legislation altogether. So the one defection
on the Republican side was Clay Higgins, a conservative also
from Louisiana, like Mike Johnson, and he was actually the
only consistent vote on the Republican side because he said,

(03:41):
we do need those protections. I'm voting against it to
protest the absence of that language. So that was a
protest vote, and he was more consistent than the GOP
leadership yesterday. The reason that John Thune in the Senate
didn't want to take it up is because, you know,
they didn't want to debate this thing any longer than
they had to. They wanted to rip the band aid
off and move on to other things where they have

(04:03):
a better hand, and so just do it quickly. Chuck
Schumer agreed to do it quickly. Nobody had to stage
a recorded vote, Nobody was on the record voting no,
and so it was just the easiest way to move
it through the Senate and get it over with move
on to other issues. So those were the dynamics there
in the Senate.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
We're joined by senior reporter for the Hail, Mike Lillis.
One last question for you, what are you watching for next?
There's obviously going to be a lot of pressure on
President Trump to sign this, but the fact that the
Attorney General, at the direction of President Trump, maybe opened
up new investigations into people like Bill Clinton, there's some
concern that they could use that to avoid releasing everything.

(04:45):
How do you see this plane out?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
And that's the million dollar question. That's a great question.
No one should be holding their breath to see the
full files coming out of the dj And the simple
reason is that President Trump, while he endorsed the bill
at the very last minute when it became clear that
it was going to pass, he doesn't want these files released.
And the proof of that is that he has had
the power to release them at any time, you know, unilaterally,

(05:08):
since January, and he hasn't done so so it didn't
require an Act of Congress, and you know he endorsed
it on Sunday. Two days before that, he, as you mentioned,
he asked Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, to open an
investigation into Democratic Associates of Jeffrey Epstein and you can so,
so now what that does. You know, DJ has a
longstanding policy under administrations of both parties of not speaking

(05:32):
about any ongoing investigations. So it's very easy to foresee
a scenario where Congress is screaming for these files and
Bondi says, you know, listen, we'd love to share them
with you, but there's our ongoing investigation, so you'll just
have to wait. And then the question is how long
is that wait going to happen? So from a practical standpoint,
it may be the case that nothing has changed even

(05:54):
despite yesterday's votes, even if Trump signs it into law.
But you know, the political fallout of something also to
watch for, and we'll have to see how Trump, you know,
handles the fact that he really just lost his grip
on the Republican Party that he is. He has been
very good at controlling and he just lost him yesterday.
So well he I have to see how that plays out.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Senior reporter for The Hill, Mike Lillis. You can find
all of us working a whole lot more at the
Hill dot com, and you can follow him on x
for more two at real Mike Lilis. Mike really appreciate
the update this morning.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Thanks so much, Ryan, Thanks for having me anytime.