In reversal, Trump says House should vote to release the Epstein files
The president’s shift follows a fierce fight within the Republican Party over the files, including an increasingly nasty split with Marjorie Taylor Greene
US President Donald Trump said House Republicans should vote to release the files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, a startling reversal after previously fighting the proposal as a growing number of those in his own party supported it.
“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,” Trump wrote on social media late Sunday after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a weekend in Florida.
Trump’s statement followed a fierce fight within the Republican Party over the files, including an increasingly nasty split with Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had long been one of his fiercest supporters.
The president’s shift was an implicit acknowledgement that supporters of the measure have enough votes to pass it in the House, although it has an unclear future in the Senate.
It was a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within the Republican Party. In his return to office and in his second term as president, Trump has largely consolidated power in the Republican Party.