President Trump said on Monday he will sign legislation releasing files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if it reaches his desk, saying the fallout of the files’ information is a “Democrat problem.”
“I do want to [sign it],” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. “Here’s what I want. We have nothing to do with Epstein. The Democrats do. All of his friends were Democrats. You look at this Reid Hoffman, and you look at Larry Summers, Bill Clinton. They went to his island all the time. Many others are all Democrats.”
Mr. Trump, who said that he would rather focus on how his policies are easing consumer costs instead of the “Democrat problem” of the Epstein files, said his Justice Department previously has handed over 50,000 pages of documents.
“They could do whatever they want. We’ll give them everything. Sure,” Mr. Trump said. I would let the Senate look at it. Let anybody look at it, but don’t talk about it too much, because, honestly, I don’t want to take it away from us. It’s really a Democrat problem.”
He compared the issue to the Democrats’ investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help Mr. Trump win his first term.
“It’s just a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax as it pertains to the Republicans,” Mr. Trump said. “Some of the people that were mentioned, are being looked at very seriously for their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, but they were with him all the time. I wasn’t.”
Mr. Summers is a former Treasury secretary and former president of Harvard University, where he is still on the faculty. He has said he regrets his past association with Epstein.
Epstein said in an email that Mr. Clinton “never ever” visited his island in the Caribbean.
Mr. Trump said, “What I just don’t want Epstein to do is detract from the great success of the Republican Party, including the fact that the Democrats are totally blamed for the shutdown.”
Mr. Trump had previously pressured Republican lawmakers to prevent the passage of the legislation this week that would force the Justice Department to release its files on Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who trafficked underage women and may have provided them to his wealthy and politically powerful friends. He committed suicide in prison in 2019.
A growing number of Republicans are expected to support the House bill, which is authored by Reps. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, California Democrat. A floor vote is planned for Tuesday.
Mr. Massie and Mr. Khanna introduced a discharge petition in July for their bill. The move is seldom successful, but the Epstein files petition hit a majority 218 signatures last week, with all Democrats and four Republicans signing on, circumventing GOP leaders to force a vote.
The three Republicans who joined Mr. Massie on the discharge petition are Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
The president’s recent reversal is an implicit acknowledgement that there are enough House lawmakers who can pass it in the lower chamber. The legislation may face an uphill climb in the Senate, but that may change with Mr. Trump’s newfound support.
The Senate in September rejected an amendment Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, filed to the annual defense authorization bill, to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files in a 51-49 vote.
The vote fell mostly along party lines, but two Republicans, Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted with all Democrats in opposition to killing the amendment.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, declined to comment at the time on whether he would bring the Massie-Khanna bill up for a vote if it passed the House, saying he would defer to Senate committees of jurisdiction “to deal with that in an appropriate way.”
He also said he trusted the Justice Department and House Oversight Committee to “get as much information out there as possible,” but did not explicitly close the door on a potential vote.
“I believe that transparency is always best, and you should get as much information out there as you possibly can, in a way that obviously protects the rights of the victims,” Mr. Thune said.
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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