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Donald Trump has urged Republicans to vote to release files related to late sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, in an abrupt shift after having previously fought attempts to make the files public.
The US president made the appeal ahead of a vote in the House of Representatives set for Tuesday that was increasingly looking like it could deliver him a damaging blow.
A growing number of Republicans in the lower chamber of Congress had in recent days signalled they were willing to defy Trump in the Epstein vote, forcing him to try to limit the most serious revolt from within his own party in his second term in the White House.
“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we’ve got nothing to hide,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“It’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” he added.