Washington (AFP) - US lawmakers are expected to vote Tuesday for the release of government records on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in defiance of President Donald Trump’s attempts to keep a lid on one of the country’s most notorious scandals.

After months of resistance, behind-the-scenes pressure and frenzied lobbying against making the material public, Trump threw in the towel on Sunday as it became clear that much of the Republican Party in Congress was poised to defy him.

The House of Representatives now looks all but certain to approve – perhaps even unanimously – the Epstein Files Transparency Act compelling publication of unclassified documents detailing the investigation into the disgraced financier’s operations and 2019 death in custody, ruled a suicide.

Lawmakers say the public deserves answers in a case with over 1,000 alleged victims.

Trump says the files will expose powerful Democrats’ connections to Epstein, but the Republican president himself faces uncomfortable scrutiny over his years-long friendship with the man alleged to have supplied rich and influential men with underaged women.

Killing the bill in the Senate after a lopsided House vote would be awkward to defend, and Trump has pledged not to veto the legislation if it reaches his desk.

But expectations of damning new revelations could prove premature.

The Justice Department has wide latitude hold back any information if release “would jeopardize an active federal investigation” and Trump ordered officials in a widely criticized intervention last week to probe Epstein’s ties with high-profile Democrats.

The saga has exposed rare fissures in support for the Republican leader, who campaigned on releasing the files but changed course after taking office, accusing Democrats of pushing a “hoax.”

After multiple attempts by Republican leaders to block the vote, all Democrats and four Republicans signed a “discharge petition” – an extraordinary procedure forcing the bill to the House floor.

Trump said on social media late Sunday that Republicans should vote to release the files “because we have nothing to hide.”

- ‘I am not stupid’ -

The U-turn marks a rare occasion when a revolt from Trump’s allies has forced his hand, and Epstein survivors at a news conference ahead of the vote questioned the president ’s motives.

“I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” said Haley Robson, who was recruited to massage Epstein when she was 16.

“So with that being said, I want to relay this message to you: I am traumatized – I am not stupid.”

At the time of his death, Epstein was facing federal trial over an alleged sex trafficking operation said to have exploited underage girls and young women, following a 2008 conviction for procuring a minor for prostitution.

Trump’s Justice Department said in July officials had completed an “exhaustive review” of the case file that threw up “no basis to revisit the disclosure” of any Epstein materials – sparking uproar among the president’s support base.

The White House escalated efforts last week to avoid the vote, with Trump and his allies making last-minute appeals to two of Republican signers of the discharge petition.

The rupture widened when Trump pulled his endorsement of loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene in a stunning break that she said “has all come down to the Epstein files.”

“Today you are going to see probably a unanimous vote in the House to release the Epstein files, but the fight – the real fight – will happen after that,” Greene said at the news conference.

“The real test will be, will the Department of Justice release the files? Or will it all remain tied up in investigations?” she added.

Trump, who has denied wrongdoing and says he cut ties with Epstein years before the financier’s arrest, has tried to redirect attention toward Epstein’s connections with Democrats, including Bill Clinton.

But fresh disclosures – such as newly surfaced emails from Epstein suggesting Trump “knew about the girls” – have revived scrutiny of the pair’s long association.