Clay Higgins Claims to Support Victims—So Why Was He the Lone ‘No’ on Epstein Files Disclosure?

November 18, 2025

On a day when Congress finally delivered rare unanimity for justice, one name stood apart: Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.). As the House overwhelmingly passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act—427 to 1—Higgins stood alone, the single ‘no’ on legislation to force release of suppressed Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. His justification? “Privacy,” he claims. But for survivors demanding answers and for Americans demanding to know how systems failed so spectacularly, Higgins’ vote tells a troubling story about words versus actions.

Bill Overview: The Epstein Files Transparency Act

The Epstein Files Transparency Act aims to open the books on the federal government’s handling of the Epstein case, after years of unanswered questions and shattered faith in justice for survivors. Its core provisions include:

• Mandatory release of DOJ investigative files on Epstein, with narrow exceptions to protect actively ongoing investigations.
• Redactions for privacy: Built-in mechanisms to protect the identities of victims and uninvolved individuals.
• Empowering survivors: Centering transparency and access to information as a route to closure and healing.
• Law enforcement accountability: Revealing where and how institutions miscarried justice in the face of privilege and power.

Written in consultation with advocates, this measure was constructed to protect innocent people while finally unmasking the secrets that enabled serial abuse on a historic scale.

Higgins’ Lone ‘No’: Rhetoric Versus Reality

Despite his oft-repeated claims to stand for “victims” and to champion “law and order,” Rep. Higgins broke from 216 fellow Republicans—defying even a public plea from President Trump—to oppose transparency. Higgins wrote on X:

“It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America. As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people — witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc. If enacted in its current form, this type of broad reveal of criminal investigative files, released to a rabid media, will absolutely result in innocent people being hurt.”

This objection, while superficially noble, wilts under examination. The law’s very language explicitly allows redactions to safeguard those not criminally implicated. The dire warning of a “rabid media” out for blood is a misleading scare tactic—not fiscal or constitutional conservatism. And the idea that 427 members of Congress would recklessly endanger innocent Americans, when many have themselves prioritized victims’ voices in crafting the bill, is both implausible and insulting.

Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

In reality, Higgins’ vote is a slap in the face to the very people he claims to champion. When Congress musters a tidal wave of bipartisan resolve—uniting Trump loyalists, MAGA firebrands, and progressives—on a core issue of justice, a single lawmaker elevating “privacy” as a decoy for secrecy looks deeply cynical. For Epstein’s survivors, who have spent years begging for answers, this lone vote is a signal: politics and procedural fears will still trump the truth, even when the cover-up is no longer sustainable.

Furthermore, Higgins’ position stands at odds with the determination of legal experts and congressional attorneys, who publicly called the measure legally sufficient for privacy and accountability. Even the Senate—after a brief pause—swiftly passed the act without further amendments.

What Message Does This Send?

Rep. Higgins’ solitary “no” is more than a procedural dissent; it is a statement that one person’s fear of daylight outweighs the desperate needs of thousands robbed of justice. It projects tone-deafness to an era where Americans’ confidence in equal application of the law is at an all-time low. When the message from Congress, at last, is “no more special rules, no more hidden deals for the powerful,” Higgins steps back into the shadows.

Louisiana, and the nation, deserves leaders who act on their lofty rhetoric when it matters most. Because survivors, and those who stand with them, cannot settle for performative gestures without action.