If House Speaker Mike Johnson thought his buddy Senate Majority Leader John Thune would help hold up a measure to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, he was sorely mistaken.

The House voted 427–1 in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405) Tuesday. Shortly after, Thune sounded optimistic about advancing the effort to release a complete trove of documents on the alleged sex offender, who had ties to prominent figures such as President Donald Trump, through the Senate.

Thune said that the Senate would likely take up the petition “very quickly,” after Trump revealed he was “prepared” to sign it, according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett.

Thune acknowledged that Johnson hoped his colleagues in the Senate would amend the legislation but admitted that making changes “wasn’t likely” after the overwhelming support from the House.

That could spell bad news for Johnson. Earlier Tuesday, the staunch Trump ally said he was “very confident” that Thune and Senate Republicans would address his own laundry list of concerns about the resolution.

Alongside his supposed concerns about not protecting the identities of victims, or not adequately preventing the release of child sexual abuse materials, Johnson has also expressed fears that the release could potentially disclose “non-credible allegations” and risk “creating new victims.”

Representative Thomas Massie, the sole Republican co-sponsor of the resolution, dismissed Johnson’s so-called concerns as a “red herring” and warned they could simply be another “delay tactic.”

Donald Trump couldn’t handle a reporter asking about Jeffrey Epstein while he met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House Tuesday. 

ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asked Trump if the House of Representatives even needs to vote on releasing the Epstein files, when the president could just order the release of the files himself. That set Trump off.

“People are wise to your hoax, and ABC is, your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should take a look at that,” Trump said, referring to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who has taken a combative approach against TV news stations critical of the president. 

“I think when you’re 97 percent negative to Trump and then Trump wins in a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible, and you’re not credible as a reporter,” Trump said, saying that the reporter should look at Democrats, particularly Harvard professor Larry Summers and Democratic benefactor Reid Hoffman. 

“Those are the people, but they don’t get any press, they don’t get any news, and you’re not after the radical left because you’re a radical left network,” Trump added. “But I think the way you ask the question with the anger and the meanness is terrible. You ought to go back and learn how to be a reporter.” 

Trump in response to an Epstein question: "ABC, your company, your crappy company is one of the perpetrators. I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong. And we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should take a look at… pic.twitter.com/vLCAjYGgXm

Earlier in the meeting, Trump became enraged after Bruce asked both him and MBS about U.S. intelligence reports that the Saudi crown prince ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

ABC’s parent company, Disney, paid $16 million to Trump in December to settle a defamation lawsuit, but it doesn’t appear to have earned the network any goodwill with the president. Instead, it has only emboldened Trump to ignore any questions he doesn’t like. With Carr’s help at the FCC, the Trump administration has gone after more TV networks, even trying to muzzle late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

Trump may have been trying to distract the public from Epstein and threaten any other reporters who wanted to ask about the billionaire child sex predator. What he really did is show he’s willing to undermine the freedom of the press for his own benefit.  

The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to release the Epstein files, sending the measure to Donald Trump’s desk.

Trump has said he will sign the bill. Shortly before the Senate announced the bill had passed, he posted on Truth Social that he didn’t care when the chamber voted on the measure.

“I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the Victories that we’ve had,” he wrote, citing his tariff policy, his immigration policies, and his budget policy, among others.

After months of dragging their feet, House Republicans—minus one—voted earlier Tuesday to release the Epstein files.

The majority of the caucus sided with Democrats, voting in favor of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R.4405), advancing the effort to the Senate, where its fate has yet to be decided. But Republican Representative Clay Higgins struck out on his own.

The final vote was 427–1. Five representatives did not vote. Lawmakers standing on the Democratic side of the chamber broke out in cheers and applause after the measure passed.

Hours after the bill passed that vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made a motion to pass the motion by unanimous consent once it is transmitted from the House. There were no objections, meaning the bill will automatically go to Trump now.

Higgins wrote moments before the vote that he had been a “no” vote on the matter “since the beginning.”

“What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America,” Higgins argued on social media. “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. Not by my vote,” the Louisiana lawmaker continued. “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 [the] 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,” he added.

But the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking ring are not aligned with Higgins’s opinion. Speaking with reporters before the vote on the steps of the U.S.........

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