The Georgia Republican is one of four in the GOP joining Democrats to force a floor vote next week.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said Friday that President Donald Trump’s opposition to releasing federal records tied to Jeffrey Epstein is “a huge miscalculation,” breaking with GOP leaders as the House prepares to vote next week on whether to compel the Justice Department to make the materials public.
Greene’s comments, made in a televised interview, come as a bipartisan discharge petition reached the 218 signatures needed to trigger a House vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The measure, co-authored by Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie, would direct the Justice Department to release investigative records within a set timeframe. The White House has called recent attention to Epstein records a political distraction, while Trump has dismissed new emails referencing him as a “hoax.” The debate now moves to the House floor, where leadership has signaled it will schedule a vote in the coming days, with the Senate’s path uncertain.
Greene, a Georgia Republican often aligned with Trump, told “CBS Mornings” that she supports releasing the files and believes doing so would honor the accounts of Epstein’s victims. “I think it’s a huge miscalculation,” she said of Trump’s resistance, adding she has heard from survivors who want the government’s records opened. Greene stressed she has seen no evidence that implicates the president in wrongdoing and said statements from survivors, including the late Virginia Giuffre, have not accused him of crimes. Trump, in recent posts, argued Democrats are reviving “the Epstein hoax” to deflect from Washington’s budget fight and a recent partial shutdown.
The discharge petition — a rarely successful tool used to bypass leadership — cleared the threshold this week after all Democrats and four Republicans signed on. Besides Massie and Greene, Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado added their names. The final signatures followed the swearing-in of a new Democratic member after weeks of delay, starting a short waiting period before a floor motion could be made. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has criticized the effort as redundant and insufficiently protective of survivors, said he will nonetheless put the question on the floor next week. It is not yet clear whether similar legislation would advance in the Senate.
At the center of the fight is a fresh tranche of emails and other records turned over by Epstein’s estate and publicized by the House Oversight Committee. Among the messages are 2011 and 2019 emails in which Epstein referenced Trump, including a line claiming Trump “spent hours” with a victim at Epstein’s home and another asserting Trump “knew about the girls” before asking Ghislaine Maxwell “to stop.” The White House said this week that the unnamed victim referenced in the emails was Giuffre, who met Epstein as a teenager, and emphasized that she did not accuse Trump of misconduct. Trump has maintained he severed ties with Epstein years before Epstein’s 2019 federal indictment and has denied writing or endorsing any celebratory notes that appear in materials compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
The pending House bill would require the Justice Department to release a wide set of records within 30 days, including flight logs, travel manifests, names of individuals and entities mentioned in Epstein-related investigations, and internal communications about evidence handling and Epstein’s 2019 jail death. Supporters say a comprehensive release would end selective leaks and allow the public to see what investigators gathered across state and federal probes from the mid-2000s through 2019. Opponents argue that an indiscriminate dump risks exposing survivor identities and sensitive details. Johnson has said any release must prioritize victim privacy beyond what the current bill specifies; backers say privacy protections can be preserved through redactions while still meeting the public’s interest in transparency.
Epstein, a financier who pleaded guilty to state charges in Florida in 2008, was indicted in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking counts in New York and later died by suicide in a Manhattan jail. His longtime associate, Maxwell, was convicted in 2021 of trafficking and conspiracy. In April, Giuffre died by suicide in Australia, according to authorities. Her forthcoming memoir, completed before her death, describes meeting Trump once at Mar-a-Lago and includes no accusation that he abused her. Trump has said he and Epstein had a falling-out years earlier; photographs show the men moving in the same social circles in New York and South Florida in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Those past associations, and new congressional records, have reignited questions that the White House calls politically motivated.
Procedurally, the discharge petition’s certification started a seven-legislative-day clock, after which a motion to proceed can be offered. Johnson said he would forgo waiting and schedule the vote next week. If the House passes the measure, Justice Department officials would have a statutory deadline to identify, review and release covered documents, subject to redactions. Committee chairs in both parties say they plan hearings to examine how records are compiled and what guardrails to apply before public release. Any Senate action could take longer, with leaders there indicating they will monitor the House outcome and review overlaps with existing judiciary and oversight inquiries.
Greene’s break with Trump drew swift reaction from across the aisle. Khanna called the Republican signatures “a decisive statement that transparency is not partisan.” Massie said the petition shows “members can work together to pry documents from a reluctant executive branch.” Johnson reiterated he wants “a survivor-first framework,” while criticizing Democrats for staging what he described as politically timed releases. Outside the Capitol, several survivors and advocates watched from the gallery as signatures were added this week and urged lawmakers to follow through. “The government will not protect the predators,” Greene said in the interview, promising to vote for the House release measure when it reaches the floor.
As of Friday, House leaders expected to publish the text of any manager’s amendments over the weekend and finalize the debate structure early next week. The Oversight Committee plans to brief members on the latest estate documents and outline a process to review additional records if the bill becomes law. The White House continued to dismiss the email disclosures as misleading and said Trump will focus on funding talks as the next deadline approaches. A final House vote is anticipated next week; if it passes, attention will shift to whether the Senate takes up the bill or pursues a narrower records release through committee channels.
Author note: Last updated November 15, 2025.