The Senate unanimously approved the Epstein Files Transparency Act Tuesday evening, sending the measure to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asked for unanimous consent to approve the House-passed measure, and no senators objected. The lower chamber approved the bipartisan bill directing the full release of all records related to the Department of Justice’s case against the late convicted sex predator Jeffrey Epstein during a vote of 427 to 1 several hours earlier.
Unanimous consent is a legislative maneuver that allows senators to expedite a bill’s passage by getting agreement from all 100 senators.
“Once the House passes the bill to release the Epstein files today, I will move for the Senate to immediately take it up and pass it — period,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Tuesday. The minority leader also accused Republicans of seeking to “hide what’s in the files.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, however, signaled Tuesday that the House-passed measure would clear the upper chamber quickly.
“My assumption is that the president sounds like he’s prepared to sign it,” Thune told reporters. “So I’d assume it would move fairly quickly over here.”
The bill’s swift passage through Congress follows four House Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado — signing onto a discharge petition to force a vote in the House. The discharge petition, offered by Massie and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna, stalled for months amid the record-breaking government shutdown and opposition from the White House.
Trump reversed his position to support the release of the Epstein files in a Sunday night Truth Social post.
“As I said on Friday night aboard Air Force One to the Fake News Media, 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 perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” Trump wrote Sunday.
A White House official told the Daily Caller that Trump’s opposition to the bill centered around his concern that Democrats were using the Epstein files to score political points.
“He believed the Democrats were using the House vote as a weapon against him to distract from the many wins the Administration has had. There has been no change in his overall position, he has been urging transparency long before the Democrats even cared about this issue,” the official said.
Mace called on the Senate to immediately pass the legislation in a brief interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday.
“No delays,” Mace told the DCNF when asked about the potential of the Senate delaying passage to modify the legislation.
“The victims are here. They want it to push forward. They’re satisfied with the petition in the way that it’s written,” Mace continued. “I don’t want to see any delays in the Senate.”
Caden Olson contributed to this report.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America / Wikimedia Commons)
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