US Congress set to formally pass legislation to force release of Epstein files – US politics live

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Former FBI director James Comey is set to return to court on Wednesday, the Washington Post reports, where his attorneys will have their first opportunity to argue that Donald Trump unlawfully directed the Justice Department to prosecute him out of spite and revenge.

Comey was charged with lying to Congress in 2020 just days after Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, with his attorneys arguing that the charges are an example of vindictive prosecution.

On Monday, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled that the justice department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” on its way to indicting Comey and directed prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case.

Former Vice President Mike Pence is speaking at Chatham House in London, reflecting on the US and its place in the world today.

He was diplomatic when discussing his former running mate, Donald Trump, saying he remained proud of the record of the Trump-Pence administration, though “it didn’t end the way I wanted it to” – Pence split from Trump when he refused to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2021 election victory at the Capitol on 6 January 2021 as rioters incited by Trump chanted “hang Mike Pence”.

“ I will always believe, by god’s grace, that I did my duty that day in January 2021,” Pence said to loud applause.

However, Pence said he disagreed on Trump’s statements on Tuesday during a White House visit with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman. Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about a US intelligence assessment thatthat the prince had approved the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US green-card holder and Washington Post columnist, saying “things happen” and that bin Salman “knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that”.

“I would not have made that statement,” he said without much more detail, adding that the visit would have gone much differently had he been in the Oval Office.

Pence also veered from Trump regarding the president’s global tariffs, saying that he believes that while tariffs “have a use as a means of facilitating negotiation…I believe in free trade with free nations.”

“The simple truth is at the American founding, taxes on tea were kind of an issue,” he said as the crowd laughed. “Those were tariffs. By the time they got around to that second draft of an American government in 1787 that we call the constitution of the United States, the one thing they wanted to make clear was that no one person could impose import tariffs and taxes on the American people, that it would be done by the elected representatives of the American people. I’m hopeful that our Supreme Court will draw the same conclusion.”

Democrats and Republicans celebrate passage of bill to release Epstein files

Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog. I’m Vivian Ho and I will be bringing you the latest news over the next few hours.

The Senate agreed on Tuesday by unanimous consent to approve legislation that would force the release of investigative files related to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The move came mere hours after a 427-1 vote in the US House to pass the bipartisan measure that Donald Trump had been fighting for months.

“Americans are done being lied to. These survivors deserve full transparency. Every document, every truth, every name,” Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump ally who split from the president over the Epstein files, posted on X on Tuesday.

The scandal over the Epstein files has dogged Trump since his return to the White House. For months, the president has dismissed the uproar over the government’s handling of the Epstein case as a “Democrat hoax”. Over the weekend, he relented and urged Republican lawmakers to vote for the measure that many of their constituents demanded they support.

“I don’t care when the Senate passes the House Bill, whether tonight, or at some other time in the near future, I just don’t want Republicans to take their eyes off all of the victories that we’ve had,” the president posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.

The Senate majority leader, John Thune, told CNN that the bipartisan bill will likely be sent to Trump’s desk for signing on Wednesday, after the House formally transmits the bill and the Senate officially approves it. Trump told reporters on Monday that he would sign the bill.

Congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat who sponsored the bill alongside Republican congressman Thomas Massie, posted on X that Trump “should have the survivors who made this possible at the bill’s signing.”

“Against all odds, the survivors kept fighting,” Khanna said. “This victory is theirs.”

In other developments:

• Backlash related to the Epstein files, some of which have already been made public by members of the House, has begun: the New York Times said it will be cutting ties with the former treasury secretary Larry Summers after documents revealed that Summers maintained a friendly relationship with Epstein long after the disgraced financier pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008.

• Trump is set to speak at a US-Saudi forum focused on investment on Wednesday. After a White House visit on Tuesday from Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, Trump said that the US and Saudi Arabia have entered into a security agreement that would ease weapons transfers between the two countries and elevate Saudi Arabia to a “major non-Nato ally,” Politico reports.

• This came after Trump brushed off questions from a reporter about a US intelligence assessment that the prince had approved the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a US green-card holder and Washington Post columnist. Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, called Trump’s remarks “a disgrace”. “‘Things happen,’ he said. Actually, someone made them happen. And that was the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. He had Jamal Khashoggi assassinated, and then he and his government lied about what happened.”

• Federal judges are set to hear arguments on Wednesday afternoon to determine a preliminary injunction request in two consolidated challenges to North Carolina’s congressional map, which was redrawn with the aim of adding more Republicans to Congress. On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges ruled that Texas cannot use 2025 congressional maps, which added five Republican districts, for the 2026 midterms and must use the 2021 boundaries. Judge Jeffrey Brown wrote: “Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 map.”

• A new Marquette Law School survey finds more people are favoring Democrats than Republicans in the anticipated 2026 vote for Congress.