President Donald Trump said Monday he will sign the bill to release all the government’s files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if Congress passes it.
Asked in the Oval Office whether he would sign the bill if it came across his desk, Trump said, “Sure I would,” adding that he thought it would do more damage to Democrats.
The comments, coupled with his social media post a day earlier calling on House Republicans to back the bill, mark a complete reversal from Trump — albeit one made in the face of almost certain passage of the bill by the House.
White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson insisted in a statement Monday that “President Trump has been consistently calling for transparency related to the Epstein files for years.”
But the president previously dismissed the controversy surrounding the files as “a hoax” and “a dead issue,” and has pressed Republican lawmakers to scuttle the bill.
Throughout the government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed the swearing-in of Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who had said she would provide the needed 218th vote in favor of the discharge petition. Last week, soon after she was sworn in, she signed it. The bill has put Republicans — torn between their loyalty to the president and to their constituents, many of whom want the files to become public — in a difficult position. It led to a falling out between Trump and one of his most fervent supporters, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, whom he called a “traitor” on Sunday. Trump’s blessing gives cover to House Republicans and their colleagues in the Senate, where the measure had seemed doomed but now could clear the 60-vote threshold to advance.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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