In the News

By Jess Rohan and Chris Ullery 

U.S. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, and Madeleine Dean, D-Pennsylvania, voted for a bill requiring the U.S. Department of Justice to release all unclassified records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

The representatives from Bucks and Montgomery counties joined the near unanimous vote in the House of Representatives on Nov. 18, which came after U.S. President Donald Trump reversed his position on the House vote.

The Senate then agreed to approve the bill by unanimous consent, moving the bill to President Trump's desk the evening of Nov. 18.

“As a former FBI Special Agent, I stand unequivocally behind the victims and their family members who suffered immensely at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes,” Fitzpatrick said in a Nov. 18 statement. “Full transparency and disclosure of the Epstein files is critically important to allow the victims and their family members to heal, and is critically important to instruct law enforcement on future human trafficking and exploitation investigations.”

Dean was among the 214 Democrats in the House to sign a petition filed in early September to force a vote releasing documents related to the investigation into Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and his close assiociate and convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Fitzpatrick did not sign the petition, which was signed by four Republicans: U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace, South Carolina; Lauren Boebert, Colorado; Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia; and Thomas Massie, Kentucky, who introduced the resolution.

Will the Epstein files be released now?

The measure is now headed to the Oval Office for President Donald Trump's signature.

Trump's name appeared multiple times in a trove of 20,000 documents from Epstein's estate released last week by members of the House Oversight Committee, including emails where the disgraced financier said the current president had spent "hours at my house" and "knew about the girls."

Even without amendments, the vote Nov. 18 allows Justice Department officials to withhold documents from the Epstein files on the basis of an ongoing investigation.

The Justice Department released a memo in July stating that an “exhaustive” review with the FBI produced no evidence to justify an investigation against “uncharged third parties.”

But last week, after the House Oversight Committee members released emails it had subpoenaed from Epstein’s estate, Trump publicly called for the Justice Department to investigate top Democrats mentioned in the emails. Justice Department officials have said they would do so.

See full article here.