The Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA) is a law passed by the 119th United States Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on November19, 2025. It requires the U.S. attorney general to "make publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format" all files (the "Epstein files") pertaining to the prosecution of the deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (if needed, declassifying them to the extent possible) within 30 days of passage, and then to give the Judiciary Committees in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate an unredacted "list of all government officials and politically exposed persons" named in the files.
In September 2025, Representative Thomas Massie, a member of the Republican Party, filed a discharge petition in support of the bill. On November12, the discharge petition received the minimum-required 218 signatures needed, from 4 Republican and 214Democratic Party representatives, forcing a House vote on the bill. The House of Representatives voted 427–1 to pass the act on November18, 2025, with Republican representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana casting the lone nay vote. The next day, the Senate passed the bill via unanimous consent, and Trump signed the bill into law. The law gave the attorney general 30 days to release the documents.
On December 19, the U.S. Department of Justice released the first batch of Epstein files, violating U.S. law in failing to release all the files by that day. This failure received bipartisan criticism. Many documents contained extensive redactions, with hundreds of pages entirely blacked out. Following a delayed and heavily criticized rollout, the Department of Justice released additional files in waves, with a fifth release on January 30, 2026. Following this, the department claimed that it had fulfilled its legal obligations and released all available files, amounting to over 3.5 million pages. This announcement received pushback, with some reports indicating that the full Epstein files consist of over 6 million pages. A sixth release was published on March 5, 2026. Following this, about 50,000 previously removed files were restored, after review from the DOJ and FBI. In July 2026, Massie introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, in response to the DOJ's actions.
The publication of the Epstein files had widespread political and cultural effects. In the months that followed, President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi and supported a successful primary challenge against Massie. Other effects included the opening of new political investigations, the resignations of over a dozen prominent public figures and politicians, reforms to the House of Lords, the arrests of Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and increased backlash against the Starmer ministry which later led to Starmer's resignation. Among the American public, publication of the Epstein files fueled conspiracy theories, misinformation and disinformation, AI-generated hoaxes, anti-elite sentiment, anti-government sentiment, anti-Israel sentiment, anti-Trump sentiment, and anti-Trump conservatism.
Background
During the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump, when asked by Rachel Campos-Duffy on Fox News in June 2024 whether he would release the Epstein files as president, answered "yeah, I would." In September, while appearing on Lex Fridman's podcast, Trump promised to release the Epstein files if elected. Trump won the 2024 election in November. In February 2025, the U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi stated in a Fox News interview that the Epstein client list was "sitting on my desk right now to review". Later that month, the White House gave binders to several prominent conservative and right-wing figures, including Liz Wheeler and Scott Presler, reading "Epstein Files: Phase 1" and "Declassified". Later that day, Representative Anna Paulina Luna criticized the event, stating that they released "old info".
On July7, 2025, Bondi released a statement saying that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found "no incriminating 'client list, contradicting her February statement. That day, DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that no further files from the Epstein investigation would be released. Bondi's statement drew outrage from conservative figures; Wheeler called it "unforgivable behavior", while the Hodgetwins called for Trump to fire Bondi. On July11, reports emerged that Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, had a heated confrontation with Bondi over her handling of the files, and was considering resigning. Bongino had reportedly yelled at Bondi, shouting "You fucked this thing up from the start"; Bongino and Patel both told the White House that Bondi needed to resign. Bongino reportedly meet with Susie Wiles, and told her that the Epstein affair was about to become "Trump's Iran–Contra"; he was persuaded to halt his resignation by White House officials. Bongino was later demoted to Co-Deputy Director on September 15, 2025; he later announced his upcoming resignation on December 17, 2025. On July12, Trump defended Bondi and referred to Epstein as "somebody that nobody cares about."
On July16, 2025, Trump referred to the Epstein files as "a big hoax." On July23, reports emerged that earlier in May, Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed Trump that his name was "among many in the Epstein files." Trump denied this report. Trump's change in position drew criticism from prominent podcasters close to Trump, as well as many conservatives. Joe Rogan accused the Trump administration of gaslighting the public, while Andrew Schulz said Trump was "insulting our intelligence". In August 2025, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer denied Bondi's request to unseal grand jury files from the Ghislaine Maxwell prosecution case.
White House internal discussions
According to The New York Times (in content from Regime Change), on July 17, 2025, President Trump and his top officials met in the Situation Room to discuss how to best handle the potential release of the Epstein files. With Trump's previous efforts to kill the release of the files failing, the administration now faced an impending article in The Wall Street Journal, which would be published online during their meeting, which revealed the existence of Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book and Trump's letter in it. Trump had attempted to kill the article by contacting Robert Thomson, Rupert Murdoch, and Emma Tucker, but was unsuccessful.
In attendance were President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Susie Wiles, David Warrington, Karoline Leavitt, Taylor Budowich, Steven Cheung, Todd Blanche, Stanley Woodward Jr., and James Blair; while Pam Bondi and Kash Patel joined the meeting on speakerphone. According to The New York Times, Trump's team was divided on how to best handle the release of the files. Vice President Vance pushed for transparency, arguing for a quick and full release of the Epstein files, as well as a subsequent congressional investigation. Vance also suggested enlisting commentator Tucker Carlson to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, suggesting Maxwell could clear Trump's name. However, Vance's recommendations were opposed down by Wiles, who labeled him a conspiracy theorist, as well as Blanche and Blair.
Blanche conversely suggested two possible courses of action. The first would be to petition to unseal grand jury testimonies, in hopes of shifting blame for concealing Epstein material onto the judges, who are very likely to deny such a petition. The second would be to publicly release a transcript of Maxwell's testimony. The idea of having Maxwell testify before Congress was also brought up, but Cheung and Blair noted that pardoning Maxwell was off the table, due to how it would be publicly perceived.
Legislative history
Discharge petition
On September 2, 2025, (the first day the House was back in session after the August recess) Representative Thomas Massie moved to force the House to vote to require the Justice Department to release the files, through a discharge petition. Trump and other Republicans launched a pressure campaign to prevent the release of the files, with one anonymous official calling voting for Massie's discharge petition a "very hostile act to the administration".
Within several days, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene signed the discharge petition, alongside many Democrats. Later that month, Greene tweeted: "The Epstein rape and pedophile network must be exposed. ... Release all the Epstein information by any means possible." She added that "if something happens to me, I ask you all to find out" who might be trying "to stop the information from coming out."
On September 9, the House Rules Committee rejected a motion 8–4, from Democratic representative Jim McGovern, to request to vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in the House, along party lines. The petition's final two signatures came from Democrats: James Walkinshaw, who won the Virginia 11th District special election on September 9 and was sworn in the next day, and Adelita Grijalva, who won the Arizona 7th congressional district special election on September 23 and was sworn in on November 12.
In the hours before Grijalva was sworn in, Bondi, Blanche, and FBI director Kash Patel met with Boebert regarding the House effort. However, Boebert did not remove her name from the petition, and once Grijalva was sworn in and provided the 218th signature, it was no longer procedurally allowable for any signatories to remove their names.
Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, had delayed Grijalva's swearing-in, generally attributing his decision to the 2025 government shutdown, arguing that the House could not swear in new members during pro forma sessions or during a government shutdown; however, some critics noted that Johnson had sworn in two Republican members, Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine, during a pro forma session in April. On October 21, the Arizona attorney general, Kris Mayes, sued Johnson, seeking to force him to swear in Grijalva. That day, Johnson told Fox Business that the delay "has zero to do with Epstein", given that "the Epstein files are being released" (seemingly referring to the House Oversight Committee's releases).
Interval period
On November 12, 2025, Johnson stated that the House would vote on the bill the following week (November 16–22). In the following days, Republican representatives Don Bacon, Andy Biggs, Rob Bresnahan, Tim Burchett, Eli Crane, Warren Davidson, Carlos A. Giménez, Nicole Malliotakis, Max Miller, and Derrick Van Orden, none of whom signed the discharge petition, stated that they will vote in favor of the legislation. Representative María Elvira Salazar stated when asked that she was still "thinking" over her vote. Politico reported that, according to anonymous sources, over 100 Republicans were expected to defect from Johnson and vote for the bill. Representative Ro Khanna predicted that 40–50 Republicans might vote for release, while Massie similarly anticipated that Republican support could "snowball", later predicting a deluge of "100 or more" Republican votes.
On November 15, Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate Epstein's involvement with banks and prominent Democratic figures, including Bill Clinton, Lawrence Summers, and Reid Hoffman. On Truth Social, Trump wrote: "This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats". Bondi subsequently assigned the investigation to U.S. attorney Jay Clayton. On November16, Massie commented on the DOJ's new investigation ordered by Trump, saying: