Lawmakers will hold a vote tomorrow on legislation to force the release of the Epstein files.

And in a stunning change of his earlier position, President Trump is now supporting the mood.

But over the last several months, the president has repeatedly tried to stop this vote from happening.

Speaker Johnson sending the House on August recess early and keeping them out for weeks during the shutdown, which in turn stole the wave of stunning developments on Capitol Hill, the House voting overwhelmingly to release the Epstein files. And now the Senate Majority Leader John Thune says that since it has the President's support, he could hold a vote as soon as today.

You're listening to Civics 101. I'm Nick Capadice. I'm Hannah McCarthy. And today we're doing a

rather nuts and bolts civics explainer tied to everything going on with the government's actions

related to Jeffrey Epstein and the Epstein files. We are not going into the contents of those files or any of that stuff.

This is a purposefully removed exploration of how a bill became a law in less than a week.

This episode is about things like discharge petitions, the legislative process, the DOJ, executive power, that sort of stuff.

So where do you want to begin with this, Hannah?

Can we just start with the quote unquote files?

When people refer to the Epstein files, what are they talking about?

Jeffrey Epstein was the subject of two criminal investigations, one that started in 2005 and another in 2019.

He was convicted, pleading guilty in the first investigation to two prostitution charges,

and in the second investigation, evidence was found proving he was running a massive sex trafficking ring.

He was charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy

to traffic minors for sex. He died in his prison cell in August 2019. So these investigations

amassed a staggering amount of evidence. We're talking emails, videos, texts, phone calls,

flight logs, financial transactions, client lists, and interviews.

And as many of us know, some of those files have been released, some have not.

I just want to understand the timeline of it all.

All right. I think I can do this. I think I can do it fast. And I'm going to stick to recent events.

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