Trump latest: President plans to sign bill to end longest US shutdown - as White House dismisses latest Epstein files

The White House says Donald Trump will sign the funding bill to end the US government shutdown tonight.

A reminder that the House of Representatives is voting on the bill soon, after it got through the Senate earlier this week. It will need to pass before the president has anything to sign.

It's been 43 days since the shutdown began - comfortably the longest ever - and Trump will be keen to present the bill as a win for the Republicans, with the Democrats having failed to secure the guarantees they were seeking on healthcare subsidies.

The White House says the signing will be on camera, so Trump may well face more questions about the Epstein files.

The revelations from the Epstein emails have been "pretty damning" for Donald Trump, says the former American federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, who spent time prosecuting sex offenders.

But Epner says it doesn't matter if the review of the newly released files will unearth anything legally incriminating regarding Trump's Epstein links.

He told Paste BN presenter Darren McCaffrey: "The Trump department of justice... is acting to protect Donald Trump and his agenda, as opposed to following the training and experience that has guided the United States Department of Justice for about 250 years."

"There is no legal case against Donald Trump," he concludes.

Ultimately, Trump will suffer any consequences "in the court of public opinion" and that could prove corrosive, Epner said.

You can hear his full thoughts on that here...

We can now bring you another update from our US correspondent Mark Stone, who talks us through the process of trawling through the over 20,000 pages that were released from the Epstein files today.

He also shares the latest findings from the batch, explaining the significance of a featured email exchange between Epstein and Peter Mandelson. 

Moreover, he brings us more on a conversation between Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, which is also detailed in the documents.

Watch his full update here...

It's 23.00 in the UK and we've been covering the release of thousands of Epstein files throughout the day on Paste BN.

Three names will be of particular interest to a British audience, perhaps.

The first is the US president - Democrat leaks of three emails about Trump and Epstein kick-started today's wave of documents. Republicans then responded with 20,000 more pages.

Here's our summary of what today's files say about Trump...

And here's a reminder of the new Andrew-Epstein exchanges...

Plus, check back with our post about Peter Mandelson maintaining contact with Epstein until 2016 - six years later than previously known...

 By David Blevins, US correspondent, in Washington DC

The newly released files have dragged Donald Trump's name back into one of the darkest scandals of modern American life.

Emails from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, released by a Congressional Committee, don't allege any criminal activity by the president.

But the Democrats say they raise fresh questions about what he knew about the paedophile and when he knew it.

The key emails concerning Trump

The key detail comes from two Epstein emails, one sent to his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, and another to author Michael Wolff.

In 2011, he wrote to Maxwell: 

i want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is trump.. [REDACTED NAME] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75% there

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats had redacted the name because the victim in question was Virginia Guiffre, who never accused the president of wrongdoing.

In a 2019 exchange with Wolff, Epstein wrote: 

[REDACTED NAME] mara lago. [REDACTED] . trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop

Those words are ambiguous, and we don't know the context in which they were written. But earlier this year, Trump said he had fallen out with Jeffrey Epstein after he "stole" young women who worked at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, and it could be a reference to that dispute.

Can Trump again turn scandal into proof of persecution?

For years, Trump promised to declassify all Epstein-related files - a pledge positioning him as a truth-teller exposing elite corruption.

Now that others are releasing those materials first, the image that helped return him to the White House takes a hit.

Instead of leading the charge, he's reacting to it. Among his base, there are many who remain convinced of an Epstein-related cover-up.

Legally, there is nothing new here pointing to liability, but reputationally, this is dangerous terrain for the president.

The mention of a "victim" spending hours with him at Epstein's home, without clear context, invites headlines and speculation that could linger for months.

But he has weathered much worse - his survival often relies on turning scandal into proof of persecution.

That explains why the White House is doubling down on its claim that Democrats are releasing selective documents to "liberal media" to smear Donald Trump.

We're starting to get previews of tomorrow's newspapers, many of which feature today's developments about Epstein files.

Here's The Guardian's, for example...

Tap below to see the rest of the front pages...

As we mentioned earlier, Adelita Grijalva, who was just sworn in as a representative, also pledged to sign a petition that will force a vote on the release of all the Epstein files.

She has now officially done so as the official list of signatures indicates. This brings the petition to the required 218 votes, or a simple majority, that will trigger a vote.

During the weeks between her election and her swearing in, when the US government was shut down, the Democrats had alleged that the House speaker Mike Johnson was avoiding swearing her in because she would be the majority-making vote on the petition.

Here's what happens next:

• The petition is now frozen and no member can remove their name;
• After a waiting period of seven legislative days, legislators can call for floor consideration for the attached bill, that directs the department of justice to release all files related to Epstein;
• The petition allows it to bypass the usual gatekeeping by the Republican House leadership and the speaker must schedule a vote;
• Several obstacles remain, however: aside from a House majority, the bill needs a majority in the Senate and must be signed by the president - all of which seems unlikely at this point.

Lisa Phillips, who survived being groomed by Jeffrey Epstein, has been speaking to our chief presenter Anna Botting on The World.

When asked what she made of today's releases of files, she says: "I'm deeply upset, it wasn't what I was expecting... I'm saddened... it's upsetting and very confusing."

She adds that any and all the information that's released brings people "closer to the truth".

But she says we're still "very far" from the truth.

Watch her speaking in full here...

The House of Representatives has now started debating the funding bill, that would effectively end the US government shutdown, if passed.

The debate is slated to go on for one hour.

Two of the spectators in attendance at the House are notably - especially given today's news - victims of Jeffrey Epstein: Liz Stein and Jess Michaels.

Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva recognised them during her maiden speech earlier.

Stein commented on the latest Epstein revelations earlier today, saying it has been "long established that Trump and Epstein had a close friendship".

She added: "I think that it's important for us to remember that there were many high-profile men that were friends with Epstein, and I anticipate that we might see more information coming out also about them."

Remember, you can watch proceedings in the House live - use the stream below...

In the House of Representatives, members are not just talking about the US shutdown tonight.

A bipartisan duo had previously been pushing to bypass Republican leaders to force a vote in the House on the full release of the Epstein files.

The two needed one more signature on the petition for that - which Adelita Grijalva, the Democratic representative who was just sworn in, has now officially pledged to provide in her maiden speech.

Grijalva said she wanted the House of Representatives to "hold Trump accountable as a co-equal branch of government that we are".

"That is why I will sign the discharge petition right now to release the Epstein files."

"Justice cannot wait another day," she added.

As we covered in our 20.17 post, Democrats are sticking with a unified message today - calling on Trump and Republicans to "release the files".

That's despite Republicans relesing more than 20,000 pages today.