The Senate agreed by unanimous consent Nov. 18 to clear a House-passed bill requiring the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release all unclassified records tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, positioning the measure for swift delivery to President Donald Trump’s desk.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said all 99 senators approved passing the bill by unanimous consent — an expedited procedure that skips a recorded vote and “deems” the bill “passed” the moment it formally arrives from the House. Senate aides told The Hill they expect that step late Nov. 18 or early Nov. 19.
“The Senate has now passed the Epstein bill as soon as it comes over from the House,” Schumer said on the floor, arguing the measure will deliver transparency for Epstein’s victims.
The Senate’s rapid action came just hours after the House voted 427-1 to approve the legislation, known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The bill orders the attorney general to release all unclassified DOJ records related to Epstein, his convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell, and any others referenced in connection with their crimes. It allows narrow redactions to protect victims’ identities and remove child sexual abuse material.
>> House overwhelmingly backs bill to release Epstein files <<
Because senators advanced the bill without changes, it will reach Trump’s desk without amendments — despite concerns raised by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and other House Republicans who wanted the measure to have additional privacy protections.
The push to force a vote began in September, when Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., filed a discharge petition to bring the bill to the House floor. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., became the pivotal 218th signer on Nov. 12.
Trump has signaled he will sign the bill once it reaches his desk. As support grew last week, he publicly encouraged House Republicans to back the release effort in what marked a notable shift in tone.
“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,” he wrote on Truth Social Nov. 16.
A White House official later told ABC News the President will sign the bill “whenever it gets to the White House.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, House Republicans were divided over the bill in the lead-up to the vote. Johnson ultimately backed the measure but warned at a pre-vote press conference that the “Epstein matter” had become a Democratic “political weapon” and said he worried that the bill did not sufficiently protect victims’ privacy.
Massie, however, pushed back, insisting some Republicans were spreading “falsehoods” about the bill. He noted that dozens of Epstein survivors have publicly supported the release effort and urged the Senate not to “muck this bill up.”
Mark Epstein, the brother of Jeffrey Epstein, added a separate layer of controversy, telling NewsNation he believes Republicans are “sanitizing” the files ahead of release.
“The reason they’re going to be releasing these things, the reason for the flip is that they’re sanitizing these files,” Mark Epstein claimed Nov. 18. “There’s a facility in Winchester, Virginia, where they’re scrubbing the files to take Republican names out. That’s what I was told by a pretty good source.”
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