WASHINGTON — With the House of Representatives all but certain to approve a measure this week that would force the Justice Department to release all of its records on disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump had a sudden change of heart.
Trump reversed his position and gave his party permission to back the bill he spent months trying to bury and broke with a one-time ally over.
"We have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.
Trump's about-face was an acknowledgement of the stark political reality before him: scores of Republicans were preparing to vote for the bill that would require DOJ to make public every document it has on Epstein and his former girlfriend and associate Ghislaine Maxwell. A discharge petition ensuring a House vote received the necessary 218 signatures last week. Four of the signatories were Republicans.
"I think we could have a deluge of Republicans. There could be 100 or more. I’m hoping to get a veto-proof majority on this legislation when it comes up for a vote," Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, the bill's Republican sponsor, said on ABC News' "This Week" earlier in the day.
