By Ashley Murray, States Newsroom
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday stopped a Democratic amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would have compelled the release of the government’s investigative files on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a procedural vote, senators voted 51-49 to table the amendment filed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, effectively stopping the chamber from considering the measure. Republicans Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted with all Democrats to advance the amendment.
The move by Schumer was the latest attempt in Congress to force Republicans on the record about the Trump administration’s announcement in July that it would not release any further materials from the federal sex trafficking case against Epstein.
“If Republicans vote no, they’ll be saying to the American people, you should not see the Epstein files,” Schumer said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “I asked my Republican colleagues, after all those years you spent calling for accountability, for transparency, for getting to the bottom of these awful crimes, ‘Why won’t you vote yes?’”
The financier, who for years surrounded himself with powerful and influential figures, died awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019. He and President Donald Trump had a well-documented social relationship that Trump says turned sour before allegations against Epstein surfaced.
A bipartisan effort in the U.S. House aimed at forcing the Department of Justice to release all investigative materials has not gained enough Republican support to bypass House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, for a floor vote.
The discharge petition filed by Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and California Democrat Ro Khanna has the signatures of all Democrats and four Republicans, including Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina. The petition, which needs a majority of House members to sign to force legislation to the floor, is short two signatures.
Massie, Khanna and Greene stood outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 3 alongside womenwho shared stories of abuse inflicted by Epstein.
The GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is conducting its own probe into the Epstein case. On Tuesday, committee Democrats released an image of a lewd birthday greeting allegedly created by Trump for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Many lawmakers and members of the public, including some in Trump’s voter base, have zoned in on the release of what they refer to as the Epstein files since the FBI declared in a July memo that no more information would be made public.
Trump campaigned on releasing the files.
