House votes to release Epstein files; Higgins is the only no

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 427-1 Tuesday to compel the Department of Justice to release its files related to the Jeffery Epstein case.

The lone no vote was cast by St. Mary's representative in Congress, U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette.

In a tweet after the vote, Higgins said:

"I have been a principled “NO” on this bill from the beginning. What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America. As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. 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. Not by my vote. The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House."

The fight over the release of files related to the child sex trafficking charges against Epstein now goes to the Senate.