On Tuesday (Wednesday AEST), the ongoing political saga saw a significant development as senators endorsed a bill previously passed by the Republican-majority House of Representatives. This approval came without incorporating the amendments that President Trump’s team had been advocating for, highlighting the limitations of his influence over his party regarding this contentious matter, which has been a thorn in his side since he resumed office earlier this year.

The bill is anticipated to reach President Trump’s desk as early as Wednesday (Thursday AEST). He has expressed his intention to sign it, marking the culmination of a particularly eventful week.

This week commenced with a surprising reversal from Trump on Sunday night. Despite his administration’s prolonged efforts to delay or block the legislation, he urged the House to pass the bill.

The legislation mandates the disclosure of U.S. Justice Department files concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased convicted sex offender and financier from New York, who had connections with numerous powerful figures in the country.

By late Sunday afternoon, it became apparent to key White House aides and the president that their strategy to halt the vote was unraveling. Consequently, they shifted their focus from prevention to managing the fallout, according to sources who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

White House aides ramped up their outreach to Senate leadership for amendments to the House bill, including redactions to protect victims, as a final effort to influence the measure, the two sources said.

They prepared for a period of “messaging and management” to slow the bill, encouraging senators to portray any delay as responsible oversight. They also circulated talking points tailored to vulnerable Republicans, urging them to frame the vote around transparency while quickly steering the conversation back to affordability issues that are expected to loom large in next year’s midterm congressional elections.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Trump had worried the focus on Epstein would distract from his other priorities.

“President Trump has never been against releasing the Epstein files – rather, he has always been against Republicans falling into the Democrat trap of talking about this rather than focusing on the historic tax cuts signed into law, the fact that zero illegal aliens have entered our country in five months, and the many other accomplishments of the Trump Administration on behalf of the American people,” Jackson said.

Despite weeks of strategising and direct pressure on politicians – including a long delay in swearing in a newly elected Democratic politician – congressional Republicans moved ahead against Trump’s wishes.

The fight has taken a toll on Trump’s public approval, which fell to its lowest point this year in a Reuters/Ipsos poll concluded on Monday. It found that just 44 per cent of Republicans thought Trump was handling the Epstein situation well.

Another 60 per cent of Americans believed the federal government was hiding information about Epstein’s death, and 70 per cent believed it was hiding information about people involved in his sex crimes. A majority of Trump’s Republicans shared those suspicions.

The saga also soured relations with one of his strongest Republican supporters in Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

Trump socialised and partied with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s before what he calls a rift, and later amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters.

Now, many Trump voters believe his administration has covered up Epstein’s ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death in a Manhattan jail, which was ruled a suicide while Trump was president in 2019.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state felony prostitution charge in 2008 and served 13 months in jail. The US Justice Department charged him with sex trafficking of minors in 2019. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to those charges before his death.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and the investigative material to date has yet to reveal any specific compromising details, though House Democrats last week released a 2019 email from Epstein that cryptically contended Trump “knew about the girls.”

The intense focus on the Epstein files has fuelled frustration within the White House and for Trump personally. The president this week lashed out at female reporters who pressed him on Epstein, calling one “a terrible person” and saying, “Quiet, quiet piggy” to another. Aides expressed exasperation over what they see as the Republican Party’s fixation on the issue – one, they fear, might persist no matter what files are released.

“There is a misconception, embraced by many in the Republican Party, that the federal government is hiding information about Epstein,” a senior White House official said. “But that theory is simply not true … the president has nothing to hide.”

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