Now that US Congress has voted to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, here is what happens next

The United States Congress has passed a bill to compel the US Department of Justice to release all its records related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

US President Donald Trump, who initially opposed the measure, reversed his position on the weekend and encouraged Republicans to vote in favour of it, once it became clear the bill had the numbers to pass.

Now that it has sailed through both the House and the Senate in a single Washington afternoon, it could soon be on his desk for the final sign-off.

This is how we got here, and what could happen next.

How did the Epstein files bill go through Congress so quickly?

The vote on the measure was called after several Republicans sided with Democrats to sign a "discharge petition", a rarely used way to force a vote in the House of Representatives.

Once the petition attracted enough signatures, the House's Republican leaders then called the vote under "suspension of the rules", which fast-tracks the process but requires a two-thirds majority for a vote to succeed.

Thomas Massie, the Republican who introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act against the wishes of Mr Trump, said he had to "drag our party to this floor today to even vote on this".

But, in the end, the bill passed quickly, after short but impassioned speeches from members of the House.

All but one congress member voted "yay" — prompting cheers and shouted "thank yous" in the gallery where Epstein survivors were seated.

Who was the one Republican dissenter who voted no?

A Republican from Louisiana, Clay Higgins, was the lone "no" vote on the bill, breaking from the rest of his party and indeed the rest of the House.

He is a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the Department of Justice's handling of the Epstein case.

It was his view that the committee was already making documents public.

Last week, the committee published 20,000 pages of exchanges from Epstein's estate.

The Republican congressman's main concern with the bill was that the phrasing of the measure did not adequately protect the identities of people who had done nothing wrong.

"As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people — witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc," Mr Higgins wrote on social media.

"If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt."

He also wrote that the measure "abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America".

He had said that if the Senate amended the bill to "properly address privacy of victims and other Americans", then he would vote for the bill when it came back to the House. The Senate did not do so.

A quick progression through the Senate

After the nearly unanimous vote in the House, the Senate passed the bill without any amendments.

The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, used a congressional manoeuvre to get all senators to agree to green-light the bill as soon as the final paperwork arrived from the House. No politician objected.

The bill will therefore automatically pass when it is delivered to the Senate, which likely will not happen until Wednesday, local time, since it has adjourned for the evening.

From there, it will make its way to the president to be signed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he had been checking in with members after the House vote to see if there was anyone who objected to passing the bill in the Senate on Tuesday night, local time.

Several House Republicans such as Mike Johnson and Mr Higgins had indicated the bill should be amended in the Senate, which meant it would have had to return to the House for another vote.

"There are serious deficiencies in the legislation that I have noted at length," Mr Johnson said during a floor speech.

"And Republicans have to work to address those deficiencies in the Senate if and when this legislation is advanced."

Senator Thune, however, dismissed the likelihood of changes being made to the bill ahead of the vote.

"I think when a bill comes out of the House 427 to 1 and the president said he was going to sign it, I'm not sure that amending it is in the cards," he said.

What happens with the Epstein files now?

Once signed into law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act would compel the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to publish all unclassified documents relating to its investigation and prosecution of Epstein.

That would include "flight logs and travel records" and "individuals named or referenced (including government officials) in connection with the investigation and prosecution".

The files would then need to be released within 30 days.

The department would also be required to publish material relating to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently in jail for helping Epstein abuse teenage girls.

The bill says the personal details of victims could be withheld, but no material can be withheld for "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity".

The department could also withhold materials "that would jeopardise an active investigation".

Could anything hold up the release?

There has been some speculation that despite the bill receiving overwhelming support, there may be some roadblocks to the files being released in full.

Remember that point above — that the department would be able to withhold materials if they jeopardised an "active investigation".

That has raised concerns among some of its proponents, who fear possible new investigations into Democrats' ties to Epstein could block the release of documents.

Ahead of the Congress vote, Mr Massie suggested the investigation may be a "last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files".

"If they have ongoing investigations in certain areas, those documents can't be released," he told ABC America's This Week program.

"So, this might be a big smokescreen, these investigations, to open a bunch of them, as a last-ditch effort to prevent the release of the Epstein files."

Constitutional experts have also said Mr Trump's newly ordered probe could be a "potential hurdle".

"If, in fact, this is a serious investigation, presumably the prosecutors will not want everything out there while they're sorting out whether they bring charges," Jonathan Entin, a constitutional law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told the BBC.

Will Donald Trump support the release of the files?

The president has changed his position on the Epstein Files Transparency Act in recent days, saying there is "nothing to hide" after initially objecting to it.

The day before the vote, Mr Trump said he would sign the bill into law if it reached his desk.

He could have ordered the Department of Justice to release the materials related to Epstein with or without a congressional vote — as he did with the release of records related to the assassination of president John F Kennedy in March.

Even if he were to use his veto powers against the bill, Congress could then choose to override him by putting the measure to a vote in the House and the Senate. It would need a two-thirds majority.

Minutes after the Senate agreed to pass the bill, the president told his Truth Social followers he did not care about the outcome and did not want Republicans to take their eyes off "all the Victories that we've had".

But he clearly remains angry about the attention being paid to the Epstein matter.

Mr Trump has been hosting a visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

He was taking questions from reporters earlier when an American Broadcasting Company reporter asked him: "Why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? Why not just do it now?"

In response, Mr Trump said he objected to the journalist's attitude and said she was a "terrible reporter".

"I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein," Mr Trump said.

"I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert."

He has consistently denied any wrongdoing and there are no accusations he was associated with Epstein's crimes.

When Mr Trump was running for office, he amplified conspiracy theories about the high-flying financier to his own supporters, but, as president, he allowed the Department of Justice to close its investigation before the outcome could be revealed to the public.

Many Trump voters believe the government obscured details surrounding Epstein's suicide in jail in 2019 and covered up the financier's ties to powerful figures.

Members of the MAGA wing of the Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been willing to break from the president over the Epstein issue.