The Moment When Trump Gave In - and Suddenly Released the Epstein Files

Donald Trump wanted to keep this issue under lock and key. For weeks he had resisted the effort by Congress to force him to release the files on Jeffrey Epstein. He could block it, delay it, talk it to death, and he did. But on Wednesday it was over. The political pressure from his own party became so great that he gave in and signed the law that now forces him to do exactly what he had tried to prevent for months.

What makes it remarkable is this: Trump could have released the files voluntarily long ago. No one stopped him. But instead of creating clarity, he chose the opposite and gave in only when there was no other way. In his attempt to reinterpret the defeat, he fell back on a familiar evasive move. In a social media post he claimed that the Democrats were using the Epstein issue "to distract from our INSANE victories." A sentence that sounded more like a final stomp than an explanation. Because the truth lies plainly on the table: Congress overruled him, and he had to act.

Donald Trump claims in his post that Jeffrey Epstein belonged politically to the Democrats, had donated money to Democratic politicians, and was connected to well-known Democratic figures. He repeatedly emphasizes that the 2019 investigation was initiated during his own presidency by the Republican-led Justice Department. Trump presents the release of the Epstein files as his own political achievement and explains that he asked the Speaker of the House as well as the Republican majority leader in the Senate to push the bill quickly. He attributes the near unanimous votes in Congress to his intervention.

He claims that the Justice Department has already handed tens of thousands of pages of documents to Congress. At the same time, he accuses the Biden administration of not having released any additional files. The rest of the post consists of political attacks on the Democrats. Trump accuses them of using the Epstein issue "to distract from Republican successes." To this he adds a long list of political measures and statements from his point of view. He also claims that the Democrats will eventually "hurt themselves" with the topic.

The law he has now signed is clear. The Justice Department must release all files, emails, and internal communications related to Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days, including all information about the investigation into his death in the federal prison in New York in 2019. The authorities may redact information only to protect Epstein's victims in ongoing cases. But they are not allowed to withhold anything because it is politically uncomfortable or casts someone in a bad light. That particular point is likely to cause tension.

That Trump ultimately yielded shows how far the public pressure had risen. Republicans in Congress had broken with him, and lawmakers and senators wanted to force the release regardless of whether the president cooperated. And when the resistance in the White House collapsed, Trump was left only with the option of presenting the whole thing as his own decision. But the political world knows what really happened. The president had to sign a law that did not come from his decision but from his defeat. And it now forces the Justice Department to deliver answers that have been hidden in the shadows for years.

It is a turning point that even Trump could no longer gloss over. A moment that shows that even a president who is used to controlling everything is sometimes simply overruled. And it is the beginning of a phase in which many names, many processes, and many decisions from recent decades will come to light. The next 30 days will show how far this light reaches. And who had hoped that it would remain dark forever.