US President Donald Trump on Sunday urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote in favor of releasing files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reversing their previous resistance to such a move.
Trump’s post on his Social Truth came after House Speaker Mike Johnson previously said he believed a vote on releasing Justice Department documents in the Epstein case should help put an end to allegations that Trump had some connection to Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of underage girls.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files because we have nothing to hide,” Trump wrote Sunday night.
“And it’s time to move on from this Democratic hoax perpetrated by radical left lunatics to derail the Republican Party’s great success, including our recent victory in the Democratic ‘shutdown.'”
Although Trump and Epstein were photographed together decades ago, the president has said the two men quarreled before Epstein’s convictions.
Emails released last week by a House committee showed that the disgraced financier believed Trump “knew about the girls,” although it was unclear what that phrase meant.
Trump, who recently dismissed the Epstein dossiers as a Democratic smear campaign, has since ordered the Justice Department to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Epstein.
The battle over the release of more documents related to Epstein, an issue on which Trump himself campaigned, has driven a wedge with some of his allies in Congress.
Many of Trump’s most loyal supporters believe the government is withholding confidential documents about Epstein, a convicted sex offender who committed suicide in prison in 2019, that would reveal the late financier’s ties to powerful public figures.
Trump on Friday night withdrew his support for U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, long one of his staunchest supporters in Congress, following her criticism of Republicans on certain issues, including their handling of the Epstein files.
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and the original sponsor of the petition calling for a vote on the release of the files, said Sunday that he expected more than 40 Republicans to vote in favor.
Republicans have the majority in the House, with 219 seats, compared to 214 for Democrats.
