Senator John Thune, the ball's in your court. The lead starts right now. First, the House.

Now the Senate, voting as soon as tonight possibly on the Epstein files and releasing them.

As lawmakers agree, it is time to see everything that the Justice Department has on the dead

pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, and any other accomplice or client who was in his

orbit. What do Epstein survivors want to see happen next? I'm going to ask an attorney representing

victims and a victim. And President Trump rolling out the red carpet strongly defending the Saudi crown prince,

the man the CIA once said, ordered the murderer of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

of the Washington Post.

Hoshoggi's widow is going to be here on the lead to respond. Plus, rapper Nikki Minaj taking the mic at the United Nations today, the issue she felt compelled to address and call for urgent action.

Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We start with breaking news from Capitol Hill, where the U.S. Senate could be just hours away from passing the bill to release the Epstein files. This after what at first blush appeared to be a stunning show of bipartisan unity in the House, where the bill to release the Epstein files passed this afternoon 427 to 1.

Now, we should note that this astounding margin only came to be after every House Democrat

and four House Republicans united to make it clear this bill would be voted on and would pass.

Once that happened, then everyone else in the House and President Trump ran up to the front of the

parade as if they had been there the whole time. Speaker Johnson, who voted for the bill,

wants changes for the Senate version so as to better protect the survivors of Epstein's,

their privacy, as well as other sensitive material, he says.

There's an easy way to amend the legislation to make sure that we don't do permanent damage to the justice system, and I'm going to insist upon that. If there's no changes to the bill, will you urge the president to veto it should it land on his desk?

Cross every bridge when we come to it.

Now, Senate Majority Leader John Thune says it's not likely that changes will happen.

And we should note the legislation as it stands clearly says, quote,

the Attorney General may withhold or redact personally identifiable information of victims or

victims' personal and medical files, unquote, and any material that depicts injury, physical

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