Epstein files: Who is Clay Higgins
Epstein files: Who is Clay Higgins, US congressman who voted no on release?
USA Democrats and Republicans alike USA anticipated a clean, unanimous USA vote on Tuesday to force the release of USA Jeffrey Epstein’s case files. But one USA member did not join the consensus: Republican Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana.His lone dissent highlighted his history of staking out positions on the extreme edge of the Republican Party.The United States House approved the measure by an overwhelming margin of 427, including 216 Republicans. The bill then moved to the USA Senate, which unanimously approved it, clearing the way for it to be sent for President Donald Trump’s USA signature.
The only person in Congress to vote against the bill was a right-wing congressman from Louisiana who is an ardent supporter of President Trump and has espoused conspiracy theories.
Who is Clay Higgins?
Higgins has represented Louisiana’s 3rd Congressional District USA since 2017. He is known as one of the most far-right members of the USA House and often takes positions that fall outside the USA Republican mainstream. He is also a strong Trump supporter.
Higgins has drawn national attention for years, often because of controversy. Before he entered Congress, he worked in law enforcement, where he faced several misconduct complaints. He later became well-known online for his dramatic, tough-talking Crime Stoppers videos, which went viral and USA helped launch his political career.
His outspoken style has continued in Washington. In USA 2020, he posted a message on Facebook threatening the use of force against armed protesters, alongside a photo of Black demonstrators carrying long guns. “If we recognise threat … you won’t walk away,” he wrote. Facebook later removed the post.During the COVID-19 pandemic, Higgins was openly sceptical about the virus and claimed that the Chinese Communist Party had created and weaponised it.In 2021, Higgins claimed that “ghost buses” – unmarked vehicles he said carried undercover agents or provocateurs – were sent to the US Capitol on January 6 to spark the violence. January 6 was the day a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop certification of the 2020 election. No evidence has ever supported the Higgins claim.Higgins called Haiti “the nastiest country in the Western Hemisphere”. Members of the Congressional Black USA Caucus confronted him, after which he deleted a post on Haitians eating pets and said he was referring to gang members, not all Haitians.
Even before entering Congress, Higgins was familiar with public criticism. He resigned from the St Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in 2016 after facing backlash over one of his hardline anticrime videos.Higgins is the seventh of eight children. He was born in New Orleans, and his family moved to Covington, Louisiana, when he was six.In 2017, he said he was working 16- to 18-hour days and that he sometimes slept on an air mattress in his Washington, DC, office.
USA Higgins has been married four times. He currently lives in Port Barre, Louisiana, with his fourth wife, USA Becca.
Why did Higgins oppose?
Higgins had previously voiced his support for the investigation by the committee and was a lead USA investigator.
But in a post on X, Higgins explained his reasons for opposing the measure, saying the files could inadvertently entangle innocent people if they are released, and claimed that he had been opposed to making the documents public from the start.
“I have been a principled ‘NO’ on this bill from the beginning. What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today. 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,” Higgins wrote. “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. Not by my vote.”
His worries were similar to those voiced by House Speaker Mike Johnson and other lawmakers. Supporters of the bill pushed back, saying those fears were unfounded and that safeguards were already included to prevent any sensitive details from being released.
“The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation that has already released well over 60,000 pages of documents from the Epstein case. That effort will continue in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans. If the Senate amends the bill to properly address [the] privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated, then I will vote for that bill when it comes back to the House,” he added.
In reality, however, the bill to release the files includes redactions of portions that would otherwise reveal the identities of witnesses, victims, their families and whistleblowers.
After the vote, Higgins appeared to raise his phone and take a photo of the House voting board listing his dissenting vote just before votes closed.Nearly every Republican in the US House of Representatives voted on a bill to compel the release of documents tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.The lone "nay" came from the Republican lawmaker from Louisiana, Clay Higgins, who defied his party saying his vote was a principled "NO".
"What was wrong with the bill three months ago is still wrong today," Higgins wrote on X. "It abandons 250 years of criminal justice procedure in America."The resounding vote in favour of the Epstein bill, 427-1, marks a rare moment of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. Hours later, the US senate too approved the legislation, clearing the way for the final act - President Donald Trump's signature.
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For Higgins, safeguarding the personal information of Epstein's many victims was the primary issue with the legislation.
As written, this bill reveals and injures thousands of innocent people – witnesses, people who provided alibis, family members, etc," he wrote on USA X. "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."Higgins said he would support the bill if it were to be amended by the Senate, which Republican majority leader John Thune had already suggested was unlikely.
"When a bill comes out of the House 427 to 1 and the president said he's going to sign it, I'm not sure that amending it is in the cards," Thune said before the Senate's unanimous approval for the bill on Tuesday.Prior to the House passing the legislation, only four Republicans had joined all Democrats in signing a petition to force a vote - Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene.But it achieved overwhelming Republican support after President Trump dropped his opposition to a vote.Higgins has represented Louisiana's third district since 2017 and is widely regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress, according to his website.
His holdout vote in the wake of 200-plus members of his party voting otherwise is not the first time he has taken an unorthodox stance.In 2024, House Republicans voted to censure Higgins for offensive remarks he made on social media after he called Haiti "the nastiest country in the western hemisphere" and referred to Haitians as "eating pets" and "slapstick gangsters".
"All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th," Higgins wrote.Facebook removed two posts from Higgins in 2020, after he wrote he would "drop any 10 of you where you stand", referring to any armed protesters that might attend a Louisiana demonstration USA against police brutality.Facebook told Business Insider at the time the posts "were removed for violating our policies against inciting violence".
USA Before Congress, Higgins was a member of Louisiana's St Landry's Parish Sheriff's USA Office. He resigned in 2016 amid backlash about a controversial anti-crime video where he was seen holding a rifle and making threats against gang members.The BBC has contacted Higgins's office for comment.
USA GOP Rep. Clay Higgins was the only member of Congress to vote against the bipartisan bill to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. CNN's Manu Raju explains why so many people are going online to find out why. Discover more videos, including live streams and exc
lusive storytelling..USA WASHINGTON -- 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."
“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,” he added.Both Democrats and Republicans alike readied for a unanimous House vote Tuesday to pass a bill to force the release of the case 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 USA 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.”USA “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,” he added.Higgins suggested he would be open to voting for the bill if the Senate amended it to protect the privacy of those “who are named but not criminally implicated.” But just hours later, the Senate passed the bill through unanimous consent, leaving Higgins the only lawmaker in Congress on record against the legislation.
Yet Higgins is also no USA stranger to controversy. As a former law enforcement officer, he faced a series of allegations of misconduct and became politically involved after achieving viral fame by creating brash Crime Stoppers videos. It earned him the nickname by media outlets as “Cajun John Wayne,” and he’s followed up the moniker by challenging people on social media to fights.USA In 2020, a social media post by the congressman -- promising the use of force against armed protesters -- was removed by Facebook for violating the company’s violence and incitement policies.
In Congress, he chairs the subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee that initiated a subpoena of the Department of
Justice for the Epstein case files. But even when Democrats on the subcommittee convinced several Republicans to vote with them to issue the subpoena, Higgins was one of the few who stood opposed. He also pressed to have the subcommittee subpoena former President Bill Clinton.“I’ve never handled a subpoena like this. This is some fascinating stuff,” Higgins said at the time. On Tuesday, he pointed to the oversight panel’s work to investigate the government’s handling of the Epstein, saying that it was being done “in a manner that provides all due protections for innocent Americans.”Last year, Higgins also faced an attempt by Democrats to censure him for racist comments he had made about Haitian immigrants after Trump’s own comments about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.In a social media post, Higgins called Haitians “wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters.”But after members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group of Democratic lawmakers, confronted him about the post, Higgins deleted it and partially walked back the comments, saying they were intended for gang members.At the time, Johnson defended Higgins, calling him “a very frank and outspoken person.”
He’s also a very principled man,” Johnson added.Throughout his involvement in politics, Higgins has remained lockstep with key principles that “champion for smaller government, lower taxes, secure borders, and individual freedoms,” according to his website.He has close ties with organizations that advance those core components, including the Three Percenters, which are known for promoting a USA decentralized and anti-USA government movement, in addition to the Oath Keepers, who define themselves as a far-right anti-government militia.
Posted on 2025/11/20 08:50 AM