The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress voted almost unanimously on Tuesday to force the release of Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, marking an outcome President Donald Trump had resisted for months before abruptly ending his opposition.

Two days after Trump reversed himself, the House of Representatives passed the measure 427-1, sending a resolution ordering the release of all unclassified records on Epstein to the Republican-led Senate, which quickly approved it. The bill could reach Trump’s desk for signature as early as Wednesday.

A senior White House official said Trump plans to sign the measure once it arrives.

The Epstein scandal has dogged Trump politically for months, in part because he repeatedly amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his supporters. Many of Trump’s voters believe his administration has concealed Epstein’s ties to powerful people and hidden details surrounding his 2019 death in a Manhattan jail, which authorities ruled a suicide.

Epstein, a New York financier, moved in elite circles and associated with some of the most influential men in the country.

Victims called for passage

Before the House vote, about two dozen women who say Epstein abused them gathered with Democratic and Republican lawmakers outside the U.S. Capitol to push for the records’ release. The women held photographs of themselves as teenagers, the ages at which they say they first encountered Epstein.

After the vote, they stood and applauded lawmakers from the House gallery, some crying and embracing one another.

Even after shifting his position, Trump has remained irritated by the focus on Epstein. On Tuesday, he lashed out at a reporter who asked about the matter in the Oval Office, calling the journalist “a terrible person” and saying the network the reporter worked for should lose its broadcast license.

“I have nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump said while hosting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert.”

White House caught off-guard

The White House was surprised by the speed with which the measure advanced through Congress, believing it would take longer in the Senate, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The fight over the Epstein files has hurt Trump’s approval ratings. A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed Monday found Trump’s handling of the issue was supported by only one in five voters overall. Among Republicans, just 44 percent said he had managed the matter well.

Trump socialized and attended parties with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s before what he describes as a falling-out. The past association has become a rare vulnerability with his base.

“Please stop making this political, it is not about you, President Trump,” Jena-Lisa Jones, who said Epstein abused her at age 14, said at a news conference outside the Capitol hours before the vote. “I voted for you, but your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”

Trump has denied any connection to Epstein’s crimes and has increasingly labeled the matter a “Democratic hoax,” even as Republicans have been among the most vocal advocates for releasing the files tied to federal probes of Epstein.

Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who spearheaded the push for a vote, accused the Justice Department on the House floor of “protecting pedophiles and sex traffickers.”

“How will we know if this bill has been successful?” Massie said before the vote. “We will know when there are men, rich men, in handcuffs, being perp-walked to the jail. And until then, this is still a cover-up.”

Greene says she was pressured to withdraw support

Trump’s opposition strained his relationship with one of his staunchest Republican allies in Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Greene, long vocal about the Justice Department’s failure to release more Epstein information, said Trump pressured her to drop her support for the bill and publicly labeled her a traitor after she refused.

Greene joined Massie and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna outside the Capitol before the vote, telling reporters: “A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America, and Americans like the women standing behind me.”

Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state felony prostitution charge in 2008 and served 13 months in jail. The U.S. Justice Department charged him with sex trafficking minors in 2019. Epstein had pleaded not guilty to those charges before his death.