Name: Trump signs bill to release Epstein files
Uploaded: 2025-11-20T07:53:33.401Z
Duration: 3 min 33 s
Description: On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the bill that forces the Justice Department to release the files from its investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The bill was passed by the U.S. House and Senate on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the bill that forces the Justice Department to release the files from its investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The bill was passed by the U.S. House and Senate on Tuesday.

Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law, obligating the Department of Justice to release documents related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation within 30 days. The law includes exceptions for information that could identify victims or interfere with ongoing investigations.

The bill passed Congress with near-unanimous support after years of advocacy by survivors of Epstein's abuse. Survivors and experts hope the released files, which may include emails, flight logs, and investigative notes, will promote transparency and accountability. However, critics have raised concerns that ongoing investigations could be used to withhold some documents from the public.

Trump signs bill to release Epstein files

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed off on a bill to release the Epstein files. CBC's Katie Simpson joins us now from Washington. Katie's been confirmed but when can we expect these documents to be publicly released? The clock is now ticking in 30 days. The Department of Justice now legally is required to release documents related to the Epstein sex trafficking investigation to the public. Now there are some some significant exceptions here and it's super unclear exactly how much will be released but here's what's happened today. After the House and the Senate passed the Epstein files Transparency Act, overwhelmingly just one lawmaker voting against it, it was rushed over to the president's desk today. There was unusual silence from the White House about whether the president was going to follow through on his word and actually sign it, whether it was going to be today, whether there was going to be some sort of ceremony, whether the victims were going to be welcomed into his office, you know, what what is how is this going to go? But it was actually on a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump's social media website, he actually confirmed after hours of silence today, he confirmed that yes he has signed the bill so now it becomes a law. So the next steps are the Department of Justice has 30 days to start preparing and releasing these files. There are some major exceptions as I mentioned Ian, one information about victims and personal details those are to be redacted or withheld. There's also another major exception and that is for any documents that could possibly get in the way of an ongoing investigation that by making them public it could hurt an active investigation. That is particularly significant because just a few days ago U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was ordering new investigations into links between prominent Democrats including former President Bill Clinton, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and a billionaire Democrat donor saying he was going to investigate, he ordered the Department of Justice to investigate those links and those ties and because of that active investigation critics have said could this possibly be a way for the government, for the Trump administration to not necessarily hand over everything that is in the public interest. Now this comes after a very long legal fight led particularly by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. They held a major news conference on the lawn of the Capitol where they were expecting the bill to pass and they were really marking this moment as a long overdue victory and a significant step toward transparency. In terms of actual documents and that kind of thing so we've got the 30-day timeline there. Experts have sort of different ideas of what it could be. More emails perhaps, notes about government investigations, flight logs, those kinds of things. Some of their survivors are saying that they're hoping some names of the alleged perpetrators are going to be made public as a result of this and they are hoping for greater accountability if that and could that possibly mean additional investigations going forward. So it is a significant step that the president has signed this bill. He had fought for months to try to prevent this from ever happening but as he saw that his party was prepared to defy him he changed his mind. The bill passed. Now it has been signed into law. CBC's Katie Simpson in Washington. Always nice having you live on Breaking News. Thank you.

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