The only motive to oppose the bill would be to “conceal wrongdoing”, she added, but also issued a plea to Donald Trump to use his power and influence to help release the full tranche of records on Epstein.

The section of the Capitol grounds, known as the House Triangle, was packed with reporters and demonstrators. Signs accusing the US president of “protecting pedophiles” were raised alongside placards demanding the administration “release the files”, and messages of support for survivors, reading “we believe you”. Many of those at the news conference told personal stories of how they were abused and trafficked. Annie Farmer, now 46, said she was only 16 when she was flown to New Mexico to spend a weekend with Epstein and Maxwell.

“For so many years, it felt like Epstein’s criminal behavior was an open secret,” Farmer said. “Not only did many others participate in the abuse, it is clear that many were aware of his interest in girls and very young women and chose to look the other way because it benefited them to do so.”

At the same press conference, the bill’s co-author, Republican representative Thomas Massie said that he is close to reaching the 218 signatures needed to bypass US House leadership and bring his bipartisan legislation, calling for the release of the Epstein files, to a floor vote.

“Hopefully they can find their spines,” the Kentucky lawmaker said of the Republican holdouts. “I’m calling on my colleagues to be one of the next two who sponsors this discharge petition.”

With all 212 house Democrats expected to sign on to the bipartisan effort, Massie would only need six house Republicans to sign to get it across the line. Four, including himself, have already done so. These include Maga firebrands such as representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

“This is an issue that doesn’t have political boundaries. It’s an issue that Republicans and Democrats should never fight about,” Greene told reporters on Wednesday. “The truth needs to come out, and the government holds the truth. The cases that are sealed hold the truth. Jeffrey Epstein’s estate holds the truth.”

Representative Nancy Mace has also signed the petition; the South Carolina Republican left a meeting with survivors of Epstein’s abuse in tears on Tuesday. “Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking,” she wrote in a post on Twitter/X. “I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us.” Mace has been vocal about her own allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of multiple men, including her ex-fiance.

Massie’s co-sponsor, Ro Khanna, a Democrat, also spoke Wednesday, and noted that any efforts to derail the bill would be misguided. “This is not against President Trump. I would like nothing more than a Truth Social post for him after this press conference saying ‘just release the files’,” he said.

The pair’s proposed resolution, the Epstein files transparency act, demands that the government release all unclassified Epstein records in the possession of the justice department, including the FBI, US attorneys’ offices and other federal agencies. Personally identifiable information would remain redacted.

Massie was undeterred by the House oversight committee releasing on Tuesday a redacted trove of more than 33,000 pages of records related to Epstein, as part of their ongoing investigation. Many Democratic lawmakers said that much of the material, which includes court filings, is already public, while Massie called it “woefully incomplete”.

But the document drop could stymie the remaining buy-in Massie needs from his Republican colleagues. House speaker Mike Johnson has branded the bipartisan petition a “moot point” and “superfluous”, given the several subpoenas filed by the oversight committee in recent weeks. He also backed a resolution that would direct the committee to continue its investigation.

Massie, for his part, was quick to dismiss this move today as achieving “absolutely nothing”. He expressed appreciation for the work of oversight chairperson James Comer, also a Republican representative from Kentucky, but said that the committee is allowing the justice department “to curate all of the information” that they’re providing.

Meanwhile, the White House called the discharge petition “a very hostile act” that would undermine that work of the House oversight committee and the justice department’s compliance in the overall investigation. Trump also said on Wednesday that the call for more information about Epstein to be released is a “Democrat hoax that never ends”.

When Congress returned from recess this week, Massie was quick to formally file what’s known as a “discharge petition” – a manoeuvre that allows legislation that has been sitting in committee for more than 30 days to be put to a vote if a majority of House members sign onto it. The bill would then enter a seven-day waiting period before it heads to the House floor.

Even if the petition receives that support, and the bill passes the House, the legislation will still need to be approved by the Senate, where Republican majority leader John Thune has given no indication he will put it up for a vote.

Should it pass the Senate, it faces another obstacle: the president. Trump’s condemnation of the Epstein file furor, as a distraction created by the Democrats, could result in him vetoing the legislation. That would punt the issue back to Congress, where the bill would need two-thirds majority support to overcome his veto.