Of the 427 members of the US House of Representatives who voted to release the Epstein files on Tuesday, one member voted against releasing them.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) was the sole vote against the House measure requiring the release of the unclassified records on sex criminal Jefferey Epstein.
“As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt,” he wrote in a statement on X/Twitter after the vote, adding that he had been "a principled 'NO' on this bill from the beginning."
"The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House."
Notably, Higgins chairs a subcommittee that initiated a subpoena from the Justice Department for the files. He is also a fervent Trump supporter.
Trump abruptly changes stance on Epstein files
US President Donald Trump had opposed the release of the files for months before changing his position abruptly on Sunday.
"House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. "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, including our recent Victory on the Democrat 'Shutdown'."
Trump, who has recently dismissed the Epstein files as a Democratic smear campaign, has since instructed the Department of Justice to investigate prominent Democrats' ties to Epstein.
The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trump’s side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters. Many Trump voters believe the Trump administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death, which was ruled a suicide, in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
Despite his changed position on the bill, Trump remains angry about the attention paid to the Epstein matter. On Tuesday, he called a reporter who asked about it in the Oval Office a "terrible person" and said the television network the journalist worked for should have its license revoked.
Trump has said he had no connection to Epstein's crimes and has begun calling the issue a "Democratic hoax," despite some Republicans being among the loudest voices calling for the release of the records from criminal investigations of Epstein.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act will now go to the Republican-led Senate for a vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that it could pass as soon as later Tuesday evening, adding that the Senate was “hotlining the bill right now.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the bill was “the kind of thing, probably, that could perhaps move by unanimous consent."