Who is Clay Higgins, the only House member to vote against releasing the Epstein files?
Who is Clay Higgins, the only House member to vote against releasing the Epstein files?
By STEPHEN GROVESUpdated 5:12 PM MST, November 18, 2025
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Both Democrats and Republicans alike readied for a unanimous House vote Tuesday to pass a bill to force the release of the c ase files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But in the end, one lawmaker stood alone in opposition: Republican Rep. Clay Higgins.
Higgins, who is in his fifth term representing a congressional district in southwest Louisiana, explained in a lengthy statement that he was “a principled ‘NO’ on this bill from the beginning.” He raised some of the same objections that House Speaker Mike Johnson, another Louisiana Republican, had with the bill, yet even Johnson said Tuesday he would vote for it because, “None of us want to go on record and in any way be accused of not being for maximum transparency.”
For Higgins, a fervent Trump supporter and a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, that wasn’t a problem.
He refused to give in to the building pressure, both within the Republican base and from survivors of Epstein’s abuse, to pass the bill, even as both President Donald Trump and Johnson relented in their opposition to the legislation. He said that his concern with the bill was that it “reveals and injures thousands of innocent people — witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc.”
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