Tonight in Your Rights: A resounding vote to release the Epstein files
Once Trump knew it was inevitable, GOP Congress members could finally vote their conscience.
Three days of live court coverage kick off on Tuesday with James Comey’s hearing.
Don’t miss any on-the-ground reporting.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act on Tuesday, following months of resistance from the Trump White House.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), has been a thorn in Donald Trump’s side since it was introduced in July.
After failing to prevent his one-time loyalists like Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene from signing the discharge petition, Trump reversed his stance to urge Republicans to vote in its favor once its passage became all but certain.
Survivor Annie Farmer, who testified at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, celebrated the development.
“My sister, Maria Farmer, first reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to federal authorities nearly three decades ago,” she wrote in a statement. “Since then, survivors – myself included – have been left in the dark about how our reports were investigated, who was involved in our abuse and trafficking, and why Epstein and Maxwell were able to get away with inflicting pain on so many women and girls for years. We are thankful that Reps. Massie and Khanna have pushed this measure forward and have continued to advocate for the release of the Epstein files once and for all.”
Massie and Khanna co-sponsored the discharge petition that forced the vote on the bill.
The vote was almost unanimous: Every member of the House ultimately voted in its favor except for Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.).
In a statement, Higgins defended his “principled ‘NO’” on a bill that he said “abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America” and “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,” Higgin wrote. “Not by my vote.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, and Trump has promised to sign the legislation if it passes. It was expected to pass with a veto-proof majority.
Massie, who co-sponsored the discharge petition, told the BBC Newsnight that Trump could “save the Senate a lot of work” by simply releasing the files, a power within the president’s control.
“They could just announce they’re gonna release all these files as soon as this House measure passes,” Massie told the network.
In July, Trump’s Justice Department and FBI released a joint statement asserting that there was no basis for any further investigation.
“This systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” the memo states. “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
The Justice Department reversed its position quickly after Trump demanded an investigation of Democrats whom he claimed to have been affiliated with Epstein. Legal experts have questioned whether Trump will avoid disclosure of the files by citing an ongoing investigation.
Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly referred the matter to Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, who had no prior prosecutorial experience before assuming that post.
Earlier this year, Clayton sought to unseal grand jury minutes from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal cases. Two federal judges called those efforts a “diversion” to avoid transparency over the investigative files, which — unlike the grand jury minutes — would reveal new information to the public.
Judge Boasberg’s vindication
With little fanfare, the D.C. Circuit vindicated Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s actions after Trump’s Justice Department ignored his order to return El Salvador-bound flights of immigrants denied due process to the United States.
In March, the government landed the flights in El Salvador despite an order announced by Boasberg at a hearing. Boasberg found probable cause for criminal contempt, initiating proceedings to determine who was responsible for the alleged violation.
Trump’s Justice Department appealed his order, finding a friendly reception before two appointees dominating a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit. Trump and his loyalists have vilified Boasberg since, agitating for his impeachment.
On Friday, a majority of the D.C. Circuit’s full bench commended Boasberg’s handling of the case, though they did not find a legal basis to revive his probable cause finding at this time.
“These proceedings unquestionably involve at least two exceptionally important principles: the foundational importance of a district court’s ability to enforce its orders and to consider criminal sanctions for willful disobedience, and the need for appellate courts to avoid premature intervention into district court proceedings absent the most exceptional circumstances,” the majority opinion, led by U.S. Circuit Judge Nina Pillard, read.
“But the peculiar circumstances of this case make en banc review an unnecessary and inapposite vehicle to vindicate either principle,” it continues.
According to the majority opinion, one of the reasons for that is that Boasberg can still find probable cause for criminal contempt through a separate mechanism, and the immigrants hustled to El Salvador have since been moved to Venezuela.
In a dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan argued that a greater principle is at stake.
“We should not leave in place a ruling that says that the district court erred when it did not,” the dissent states. “We live in a world in which judges face threats and harassment because of their rulings and have been called ‘rogue’ by government officials who disagree with them. And we cannot overlook that, in response to this very case, the President of the United States called for the district judge’s impeachment. Some lawyers and interested observers might read the statements accompanying our denial of en banc review and realize that a majority of the full court does not believe that the district court was in the wrong. But the meaning of this vote is likely to be misunderstood by members of the broader public who just read headlines, or who choose to focus only on the bottom line.”
Goaded by Trump, MAGA loyalists in Congress have been pushing for Boasberg’s impeachment, but Boasberg does not appear to be intimidated.
On Wednesday, the case of J.G.G. v. Trump returns to Boasberg, who instructed both parties to prepare to argue about criminal contempt proceedings. Instructions on how to dial in remotely can be bound in the listings for “Rising This Week” or the court’s docket.
Read the opinions in full here, and watch out for a video explainer soon on Legal AF.
Judges void redistricted Texas maps
Texas must revert to electoral maps used before a racial gerrymander, a three-judge panel ruled by a majority on Tuesday.
Two of the three judges found that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) rushed to follow Trump’s instructions to redraw the maps to create five more Republican seats by “intentionally manipulat[ing] the districts’ lines to create more majority-Hispanic and majority-Black districts.”
At the start of his lead opinion, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown quoted the remarks of Chief Justice John Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
“The map ultimately passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor—the 2025 Map—achieved all but one of the racial objectives that DOJ demanded,” the lead opinion states. “The Legislature dismantled and left unrecognizable not only all of the districts DOJ identified in the letter, but also several other ‘coalition districts’ around the State.”
For more than a decade, the Supreme Court has chipped away at the Voting Rights Act by adopting the Republican Party’s arguments gutting opportunity districts for Black and Latino candidates in the name of a post-racial society. Defenders of the landmark civil rights law pointed to the continuing need for the civil rights law’s protections in light of persistent racial inequalities.
“The Republican Party has been obsessed with ending the Voting Rights Act for a while,” scholar Leah Litman, the author of “Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes,” told All Rise News. “For decades, they have framed their opposition to the VRA in terms of race – how it’s (allegedly) so unfair and unequal for the law to prevent legislatures from drawing districts that lock minority voters out of political power.”
“Today, the dogma caught the car,” Litman added. “A federal court invalidated the Texas maps *precisely because* Texas & the federal government kicked off the gerrymander by announcing it was all about race. But as the Chief Justice said – the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to … stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
In today’s ruling, the typically conservative argument foils the Trump-loyalist plan to redraw Texas maps for a more favorable outcome in the 2026 midterm elections.
Read the opinion in full here.
HOPE, “banned”?
This past August, I participated in the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conference, interviewing a former DOGE staffer Sahil Lavingia in a wide-ranging conversation about Elon Musk’s erstwhile initiative.
It was one of numerous events organizers hosted, including one headlined event from ICEBlock creator Joshua Aaron. (The Trump administration launched an aggressive campaign against the ICE-tracking app, pressuring Apple to remove it from its App Store.)
Since its inception in 1994, the HOPE conference has brought prominent figures in the computer hacking community together with journalists, activists, and other newsmakers for topical and sometimes-provocative conversations.
On Tuesday, the conference’s main sponsor, 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, announced that St. John’s University, the conference’s hub for the past four years, “banned” their events, citing “materials and messaging” that “were not in alignment” with their “mission, values, and reputation.”
Emmanuel Goldstein, who publishes 2600 and takes his pen name from the character in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, told All Rise News: “The unfortunate thing about such a vague statement is that it it leaves it up to the imagination as to what this is really all about.”
“We could say that it’s an offensive cover to an anarchist publication that sets somebody off,” Goldstein said in a phone interview. “Or we could say that it was in fact, having the author of ICEBlock represented there that could have upset somebody. Maybe we insulted DOGE by asking them pointed questions, or maybe it’s just our attitude. You know, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we always ruffle feathers.”
For years, St. John’s University knew and welcomed the HOPE conference in a testament to academic freedom.
“We’ve done three conferences there, and that’s what they liked about us,” Goldstein added. “That’s what universities used to be all about: ruffling feathers and challenging and debating, and now, in today’s society, that’s become kind of off limits, and universities are being much more careful.”
St. John’s University didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Read HOPE’s full statement here.
A free and insubordinate press
Sitting next to the man U.S. intelligence found approved Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, Trump ranted against an ABC News reporter for daring to ask an “insubordinate” question.
Long live a free and insubordinate press in the United States of America.
Programming note
Three straight days of live coverage for All Rise News kicks off on Wednesday with the latest James Comey hearing. On Thursday, a federal judge will hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether she will block the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia.
Finally, on Friday, John Bolton has his initial status conference, which could shape the future of his criminal trial.
Subscribe to All Rise News for updates.
you're doing a great job Adam. Keep it up. Will also be looking for it on LEGAL AF. Thanks!
Terrific report Adam. Long live so-called subversion!