Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will force Senate Republicans into a vote showing whether they align themselves with the Trump administration’s policy of covering up what the government knows about the investigation into accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
Schumer announced on Wednesday that he has attached an amendment to upcoming legislation authorizing defense spending, and that it would require the attorney general to release the Department of Justice’s Epstein files.
The Trump administration, typically via Attorney General Pam Bondi, has refused to release the files related to its investigation of Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking operation. Among the documents believed to be in the government’s possession is a client list indicating the powerful men who abused young women thanks to Epstein.
“We’re going to keep fighting until these files are fully released,” Schumer said in a video posted to social media.
Schumer’s amendment echoes a bipartisan discharge petition currently circulating in the House offered up by California Rep. Ro Khanna and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, mandating the same disclosure.
The amendment increases pressure on the Trump administration, which has now spent months deflecting and lying to avoid addressing the issue. Trump, who spent years promising to release Epstein details, has continued to assert that the issue is dead or unimportant.
This image posted on Sept. 8 to the X account of the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee shows a sexually suggestive birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein alluding to a “wonderful secret” and purportedly signed by President Donald Trump, who has denied sending the note.
Following the release of a birthday note for Epstein seemingly signed by Trump, alongside a lewd drawing of a naked woman, the administration’s flacks have tried to say the document is a forgery.
Despite the logical inconsistency of this deflection, it has been treated as a credible excuse by the mainstream media. For instance, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post initially headlined a story about the card as “No clear answers on whether Trump signed the Epstein birthday book.” After facing online criticism, the paper changed the headline to “Is the signature Trump’s? Epstein birthday book feeds speculation.”
That is the sort of behavior that led Trump in March to praise Bezos for “trying to do a real job with the Washington Post” as the paper softened its coverage of Trump.
After throwing out multiple narratives and media stunts meant to chase the Epstein story from front pages, victims and survivors have spoken out and criticized Trump’s stonewalling. That has made the story a top issue once again, and while a few Republicans have broken ranks, most are continuing to play defense for the leader of their party.
It has largely been the Democrats pushing for the disclosure that survivors and victims are begging for.
