Donald Trump has told his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a sudden reversal of his earlier position.
The US president’s post on his Truth Social website came after the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said previously that he believed a vote on releasing justice department documents in the Epstein case should help put to rest allegations “that he [Trump] has something to do with it”.
Late on Sunday, Trump wrote on his social media platform: “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 in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party,” he added.
The White House has struggled to contain suspicion within Trump’s usually loyal Make America Great Again (Maga) base that the administration is hiding details of Epstein’s crimes to protect the rich elite with whom the financier associated, including Trump.
Despite continued releases of files by Republicans this year, including a cache of more than 20,000 pages that were published last week, pressure has grown to disclose more information from Epstein’s estate, as well as FBI investigation documents.
The US House of Representatives is expected to vote on the legislation regarding the release of more Epstein files this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday.
Although Trump and Epstein were photographed together decades ago, the president has said the two men fell out before Epstein’s convictions. Emails released last week by a House committee showed Epstein, who killed himself in jail in 2019, had said Trump “knew about the girls”, though it was not clear what that phrase meant.
Critics had previously accused Trump of trying to conceal details – something the president denies – by hoping to block the vote, which has divided his typically loyal Republican party.
“The House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I DON’T CARE! All I do care about is that Republicans get BACK ON POINT, which is the Economy, “Affordability”, Trump wrote in his post on Truth Social.
The political crisis has led to fissures in sections of the usually loyal Republican party.
Trump withdrew his support on Friday for the representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, long one of his staunchest supporters in Congress, after her criticism of Republicans on certain issues, including the handling of the Epstein files.
Earlier that day, Greene had told Politico: “Releasing the Epstein files is the easiest thing in the world. Just release it all. Let the American people sort through every bit of it, and, you know, support the victims. That’s just like the most common sense, easiest thing in the world. But to spend any effort trying to stop it makes – it just doesn’t make sense to me.”
The US president later called Greene “wacky” and a “traitor”.
Trump, who has often dismissed the Epstein files as a Democratic smear campaign, last week instructed the justice department to investigate prominent Democrats’ ties to Epstein.
The Republican congressman Thomas Massie later challenged Trump over the fresh investigation, questioning whether the president was making a “last-ditch effort” to keep the full files on Epstein from becoming public.
Massie and the Democratic congressman Ro Khanna, the US representatives leading the bipartisan push to make all the files held by the government public, raised concerns about the actions by the White House.
Khanna, an original sponsor of the petition calling for a vote on the files’ release, said on Sunday that he expected more than 40 Republicans to vote in favour.
But, with the pressure growing, Trump on Sunday evening made a reversal and in effect ordered his party members to vote to release the files.
Republicans hold the majority in the House, with 219 seats v 214 for Democrats.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
