WASHINGTON(National times)- President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts. Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago. \u201cDemocrats have used the \u2018Epstein\u2019 issue, which affects them far more than the Republican Party, in order to try and distract from our AMAZING Victories,\u201d Trump said in a social media post as he announced he had signed the bill. Now, the bill requires the Justice Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein, as well as any information about the investigation into his death in a federal prison in 2019, within 30 days. It allows for redactions about Epstein\u2019s victims for ongoing federal investigations, but DOJ cannot withhold information due to \u201cembarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.\u201d It was a remarkable turn of events for what was once a farfetched effort to force the disclosure of case files from an odd congressional coalition of Democrats, one GOP antagonist of the president, and a handful of erstwhile Trump loyalists. As recently as last week, the Trump administration even summoned one Republican proponent of releasing the files, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, to the Situation Room to discuss the matter, although she did not change her mind. But over the weekend, Trump did a sharp U-turn on the files once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the GOP agenda and indicated he wanted to move on. \u201cI just don\u2019t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the Victories that we\u2019ve had,\u201d Trump said in a social media post Tuesday afternoon, explaining the rationale for his abrupt about-face. The House passed the legislation on a 427-1 vote, with Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., being the sole dissenter. He argued that the bill\u2019s language could lead to the release of information on innocent people mentioned in the federal investigation. The Senate later approved it unanimously, skipping a formal vote. It\u2019s long been established that Trump had been friends with Epstein, the disgraced financier who was close to the world\u2019s elite. But the president has consistently said he did not know of Epstein\u2019s crimes and had cut ties with him long ago. Before Trump returned to the White House for a second term, some of his closest political allies helped fuel conspiracy theories about the government\u2019s handling of the Epstein case, asserting a cover-up of potentially incriminating information in those files.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON(National times)- President Donald Trump signed legislation Wednesday that compels his administration to release files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bowing to political pressure from his own party after initially resisting those efforts. Trump could have chosen to release many of the files on his own months ago. \u201cDemocrats have used the \u2018Epstein\u2019 issue, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n