Senate receives and passes bill to release Epstein files, heads to Trump for signing
The Senate has now officially received the bill, passed in the House, which calls on the justice department to release the complete Epstein files. On Tuesday the upper chamber passed the legislation with unanimous consent – which means it now heads directly to Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
As I noted in my last post, we’re not clear on when that will be, since his schedule hasn’t been updated.
Key events
House set to repeal funding bill provision to allow senators to sue government over phone records
Later today, we’re expecting a vote in the House that would repeal a provision tucked into the stopgap spending bill passed last week (which ended the record-breaking government shutdown) that allows senators to sue the federal government because their phone records were subpoenaed in 2023 by the special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Most Republicans in the House have derided the measure, while the Senate majority leader, John Thune, remained convinced it was necessary. “The House is going to do what they’re going to do with it,” he said of the lower chamber lawmakers. “It doesn’t apply to them.” However, a number of GOP senators have indicated they’re happy to do away with the provision. This even includes some of the eight lawmakers whose phone data the FBI sought and obtained as part of Jack Smith’s investigation.
That vote is currently scheduled for 8:15pm ET.
Senate receives and passes bill to release Epstein files, heads to Trump for signing
The Senate has now officially received the bill, passed in the House, which calls on the justice department to release the complete Epstein files. On Tuesday the upper chamber passed the legislation with unanimous consent – which means it now heads directly to Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
As I noted in my last post, we’re not clear on when that will be, since his schedule hasn’t been updated.
One quick note, there haven’t been any changes to Donald Trump’s schedule today, per the press pool. Which means, as of now, the president doesn’t have any time allotted to sign the bill forcing the justice department to release the full batch of Jeffrey Epstein files.
We’ll keep you updated if things change throughout the day.
Exclusive: State department to cut 38 universities from research program over DEI policies
Joseph Gedeon
The state department is proposing to suspend 38 universities including Harvard and Yale from a federal research partnership program because they engage in diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices, according to an internal memo and spreadsheet obtained by the Guardian.
The memo, dated 17 November, recommends excluding institutions from the Diplomacy Lab – a program that pairs university researchers with state department policy offices – if they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices” or set DEI objectives for candidate pools.
Elite institutions including Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Southern California are among those marked for suspension, effective 1 January 2026. Other targeted schools include American University, George Washington University, Syracuse University and several University of California campuses.
An accompanying spreadsheet, reviewed by the Guardian, uses a color-coded system to evaluate 75 universities on a four-point scale, with institutions showing “clear DEI hiring policy” marked in red for suspension and those with “merit-based hiring with no evidence of DEI” marked in green to maintain partnerships.
The suspensions follow Trump’s near year-long campaign against DEI in higher education. In January, he declared diversity programs “illegal” and ordered agencies to force universities receiving federal grants to certify compliance or lose funding, with a 21 April deadline. In April, he moved to terminate accreditors that require DEI practices, threatening universities’ ability to access federal student aid.
Read more of Joseph’s report below.
And a reminder, my colleague Jakub Krupa is covering the latest out of Ukraine, and the latest Russian strike on Ternopil. You can follow along with his reporting below.
Trump administration crafting plan with Russia to end war in Ukraine – report
The Trump administration is working with Russia to craft a plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to a report by Axios.
Citing unnamed US and Russian officials, a 28-point peace plan is inspired by Trump’s deal to end the war in Gaza. According to Axios’ sources, the plan’s 28 points fall into four general buckets: peace in Ukraine, security guarantees, security in Europe, and future U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is leading the drafting of the plan Trump’s envoy and has discussed it extensively with top Russian diplomat, Kirill Dmitriev. The aim, according to Dmitriev is to produce a written document along those lines before Trump and Putin next meet, according to Dmitriev.
According to Axios’ Barak Ravid, Witkoff also met with Ukraine’s national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, in a meeting earlier this week in Miami, Florida.
This comes as an overnight strike by Russia on western Ukraine killed 25 people and left 73 people injured, according to Ukrainian interior ministry
A reminder that all but one member of the House, Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins, voted on Tuesday for the justice department to release the complete trove of Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate approved the legislation by unanimous consent, and it’s expected to hit the president’s desk today.
My colleagues have put together a helpful graphic to show just how widespread the support in House was for the bill.
Donald Trump is on day two of the Saudi crown prince’s visit to Washington. Later, around noon ET, the president will travel to the Kennedy Center and deliver remarks at the US-Saudi investment forum, where Mohammed bin Salman will be in attendance. Also speaking at the event – billionaire and Doge mastermind Elon Musk.
Larry Summers steps down from OpenAI board following release of Epstein emails – report
Larry Summers, a former treasury secretary and Harvard professor, told Axios on Wednesday that he was resigning from the OpenAI board following the publication of a series of email exchanges he had with the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
His resignation comes one day after Charlie Stadtlander, the New York Times’ executive director for media relations and communications, said the publication was cutting ties with him amid new revelations about his relationship with Epstein from documents released by members of the House last week.
The documents revealed that Summers maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008, and continued to correspond with him until 5 July 2019, the day before Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges.
“In line with my announcement to step away from my public commitments, I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” Summers said in a statement to Axios. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress.”
The Senate is expected to formally vote on Wednesday on a bill that would force the full release of the investigative files related to Epstein. Some of the documents that have already been released appear to suggest that Donald Trump “knew about the girls” procured for Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring and that he had once Trump “spent hours” with one victim at Epstein’s house.
Former FBI director James Comey to appear in court
Former FBI director James Comey is set to return to court on Wednesday, where his lawyers will argue that Donald Trump unlawfully directed the Justice Department to prosecute as a form of malicious retribution.
Comey was charged with lying to Congress in 2020 just days after Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, with his attorneys arguing that the charges are an example of vindictive prosecution.
On Monday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled that the justice department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” on its way to indicting Comey and directed prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case.
Mike Pence says ‘I did my duty’ in UK talk touching on January 6, tariffs and MBS visit
Former Vice President Mike Pence is speaking at Chatham House in London, reflecting on the US and its place in the world today.
He was diplomatic when discussing Donald Trump, saying he remained proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration, though “it didn’t end the way I wanted it to” – Pence split from Trump when he refused to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory at the Capitol on 6 January 2021 as rioters incited by Trump chanted “hang Mike Pence”.
“I will always believe, by god’s grace, that I did my duty that day in January 2021,” Pence said to loud applause.
However, Pence said he disagreed on Trump’s statements on Tuesday during a White House visit with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman. Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about a US intelligence assessment that the prince had approved the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US green-card holder and Washington Post columnist, saying “things happen” and that bin Salman “knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that”.
“I would not have made that statement,” he said without much more detail, adding that the visit would have gone much differently had he been in the Oval Office.
Pence also distanced himself from Trump’s global tariffs, saying he believes that while tariffs “have a use as a means of facilitating negotiation…I believe in free trade with free nations.”
“The simple truth is at the American founding, taxes on tea were kind of an issue,” he said as the crowd laughed. “Those were tariffs. By the time they got around to that second draft of an American government in 1787 that we call the constitution of the United States, the one thing they wanted to make clear was that no one person could impose import tariffs and taxes on the American people, that it would be done by the elected representatives of the American people. I’m hopeful that our supreme court will draw the same conclusion.”
Democrats and Republicans celebrate passage of bill to release Epstein files
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog. I’m Vivian Ho and I will be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.
The Senate agreed on Tuesday by unanimous consent to approve legislation that would force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The move came mere hours after a 427-1 vote in the US House to pass the bipartisan measure that Donald Trump had been fighting for months.
“Americans are done being lied to. These survivors deserve full transparency. Every document, every truth, every name,” Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump ally who split from the president over the Epstein files, posted on X on Tuesday.
The scandal over the Epstein files has dogged Trump since his return to the White House. For months, the president has dismissed the uproar over the government’s handling of the Epstein case as a “Democrat hoax”. Over the weekend, he relented and urged Republican lawmakers to vote for the measure that many of their constituents demanded they support.
“I don’t care when the Senate passes the House Bill, whether tonight, or at some other time in the near future, I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the victories that we’ve had,” the president posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.
The Senate majority leader, John Thune, told CNN that the bipartisan bill will likely be sent to Trump’s desk for signing on Wednesday, after the House formally transmits the bill and the Senate officially approves it. Trump told reporters on Monday that he would sign the bill.
Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat who sponsored the bill alongside Republican congressman Thomas Massie, posted on X that Trump “should have the survivors who made this possible at the bill’s signing.”
“Against all odds, the survivors kept fighting,” Khanna said. “This victory is theirs.”
In other developments:
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Backlash related to the Epstein files, some of which have already been made public by members of the House, has begun: the New York Times said it will be cutting ties with the former treasury secretary Larry Summers after documents revealed that Summers maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008.
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Trump is set to speak at a US-Saudi forum focused on investment on Wednesday. After a White House visit on Tuesday from Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said that the US and Saudi Arabia have entered into a security agreement that would ease weapons transfers between the two countries and elevate Saudi Arabia to a “major non-Nato ally,” Politico reports.
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This came after Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about a US intelligence assessment that the prince had approved the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US green-card holder and Washington Post columnist. Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, called Trump’s remarks “a disgrace”. “‘Things happen,’ he said. Actually, someone made them happen. And that was the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He had Jamal Khashoggi assassinated, and then he and his government lied about what happened.”
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Federal judges are set to hear arguments on Wednesday afternoon to determine a preliminary injunction request in two consolidated challenges to North Carolina’s congressional map, which was redrawn with the aim of adding more Republicans to Congress. On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges ruled that Texas cannot use 2025 congressional maps, which added five Republican districts, for the 2026 midterms and must use the 2021 boundaries. Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote: “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”
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A new Marquette Law School survey finds more people are favoring Democrats than Republicans in the anticipated 2026 vote for Congress.
