LATEST UPDATES: Trump threatens to pull ABC's licence after Epstein question as House vote looms

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Fallout from the Epstein files

Trump just called for ABC's broadcast license to be revoked while he admonished a reporter, in unusually strong terms, for asking a question about the Epstein files during his appearance with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

It was the second question Mary Bruce, ABC's chief White House correspondent, asked Trump during the meeting in the Oval Office.

"Why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now?" Bruce asked the president.

Trump replied: "You know, it's not the question that I mind. It's your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It's the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate and just a terrible question."

Trump was referring to Bruce's earlier question to bin Salman about allegations the prince approved the 2018 assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump called ABC a "crappy company" and said Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr should take its broadcast license away "because your news is so fake and it's so wrong."

In 2007, Epstein faced a federal indictment accusing him of recruiting a network of underage girls to sexually abuse them at his homes in Florida and New York through the early part of that decade.

He potentially faced life in prison, but federal prosecutor Alex Acosta agreed to a secret deal letting Epstein plead guilty to lesser charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor, without informing the survivors.

Epstein served just 13 months in a county jail, and for eight months of that term was allowed to leave the jail six days a week to work.

Trump named Acosta to be his secretary of labour in his first term.

After Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown revealed the secret plea deal in 2018, a new federal investigation was launched into Epstein. Acosta resigned from cabinet.

Epstein was indicted in July 2019 on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy. The indictment alleged he "intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18."

Epstein died by suicide a month later, so never faced the charges in court.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said today that Democrats are "playing games with the vote," saying the party wanted to distract from its "failures."

"It is as deceitful and dishonest as their pointless stunt to shut down the government," Johnson said.

He added that Trump had "nothing to do with it," referring presumably to Epstein's crimes. "He has said himself he has nothing to hide," Johnson added.

Johnson said he's certain today's vote will pass. For months, he was against the measure to release the remaining unclassified documents, saying they would harm victims — which Massie and Greene say is false. Johnson changed his position after Trump said over the weekend he was in favour of it.

Hi, I'm Mark, a reporter based in Toronto.

Information about Epstein has often come out in bits and pieces and in various forms.

Some documents have been released through court cases, some through the U.S. Congress and some through the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

For example, in January 2024, scores of documents were released in connection to a lawsuit filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell.

Much of that information was already known to people following the case, including mentions of high-profile friends and acquaintances of Epstein. But it also contained accounts of some of Epstein’s young victims.

This past February, the DOJ released documents that included copies of flight logs from Epstein’s private plane, and a heavily redacted photocopy of an address book purportedly compiled by Epstein and Maxwell, The Associated Press reported.

Last week, Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released more than 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate.

Yet it was three emails released earlier by Democrats that received the most attention. One of those exchanges included an email from early 2019, where Epstein is said to have emailed New York author Michael Wolff that Trump "knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop."

The vote could happen any time after 2 p.m. ET. Congress members are expected to vote on a number of matters starting then, including on land management and oil reserve issues. The votes are scheduled to take place until 8:15 p.m. ET.

Trump changes course, urges Republicans to vote to release Epstein files

U.S. President Donald Trump urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of the Epstein files, reversing his earlier stance. 'House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,' Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday.

David Graham, a writer for The Atlantic, says the vote is "most notable as a political milestone" since the legislation can't be acted on until it's taken up by the U.S. Senate.

Graham said Trump is "bowing to reality" by reversing his position on the vote, but it also signals he wants to move on from the issue.

Trump himself told reporters this morning: "They can do whatever they want. We'll give them everything. Let the Senate look at it, let anybody look at it. But don't talk about it too much because honestly I don't want it to take away from us too much."

Whether the legislation and documents themselves pave the way for more ramifications in the justice system is unclear, Graham said.

Greene was asked about the discrepancy between promises made by Trump on releasing the Epstein documents and the lack of action by his administration.

"This has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA," she said, referring to the Make America Great Again movement Trump launched when he first ran for president.

Greene said she had been "Day 1 in 2015 on the MAGA train," but that the debate over Epstein "ripped MAGA apart." She added that "the American people won't tolerate any other bullshit."

"I only take people's actions seriously, no longer words," Greene said.

Republican representatives Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene answered questions from reporters at the news conference with survivors. They were joined by Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna in a show of the bipartisan effort to get the legislation passed.

Assertions from other Republicans who said the legislation could harm survivors are a "delay tactic," Massie said, noting there is a provision in the act protecting victims.

He said there's been a "reckoning in Britain that needs to happen in the U.S.," pointing to the loss of the former prince Andrew's royal title and the firing of the ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson, following revelations of their ties to Epstein.

One of the survivors on Capitol Hill this morning, Lara Blume-McGee, said it was her first time speaking publicly about the abuse she suffered by Epstein and Maxwell.

"I was sexually and mentally abused by Jeffrey Epstein," she said.

Blume-McGee said she was pursuing a modelling career in New York City, but that "instead I was intentionally groomed and became part of an international model sex trafficking ring."

Some of the survivors said they were recruited by Epstein and Maxwell in the early 1990s, others in the early 2000s. They said they wanted to show how long the pair's crimes lasted.

Liz Stein said she met the two in 1994 as a 21-year-old college student, hoping to get into law school.

"My involvement with them changed the trajectory of my entire life," Stein said.

Many of the survivors said their choice to speak up was not political.

"This is not a hoax and we will not be erased," Blume-McGee said.

The bill the House is expected to vote on today is called the Epstein Files Transparency Act. If it passes the Senate and the president signs it into law, it would require the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release within 30 days all unclassified documents and investigative materials that relate to Epstein or his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for aiding Epstein's sexual abuse of underage girls.

According to the text of the act, the scope of material that could be disclosed is extensive. It specifically mentions flight logs, documents naming individuals connected with Epstein's criminal activities, the names of organizations with alleged ties to his trafficking networks, and internal DOJ communications concerning decisions to investigate or not investigate Epstein or his associates.

The act allows the attorney general to withhold or redact any material that would identify victims or that depicts violence or child sexual abuse.

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