Hours before the House looked set to vote overwhelmingly to force the release of the Justice Department’s (DOJ) tranche of Jeffrey Epstein files, a group of survivors of the late sex offender’s trafficking ring gathered outside the Capitol on Tuesday morning to issue an extraordinary, public warning to President Donald Trump: do not obstruct what happens next.Speaking alongside the bipartisan lawmakers who spent months maneuvering the bill past opposition from both Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, the survivors said they remained deeply skeptical that the President would allow the files to be released without interference, even after he reversed himself and pledged to sign the legislation.“I am traumatized, I am not stupid,” said Haley Robson, one of the survivors of Epstein’s abuse, who held a photo of herself as a child as she spoke. “While I do understand that your position has changed on the Epstein files, and I’m grateful that you have pledged to sign this bill, I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is.”Read more: Trump Has Found a Way to Block the Epstein Files, Legal Experts WarnThe concerns come as legal experts have warned that Trump’s Department of Justice could try to block the release of Epstein-related files by asserting executive privilege after Trump ordered a new probe last week into several of his political opponents for their links to Epstein. The White House characterized the President directing those investigations as an example of how the President has “done more for the victims than Democrats ever have,” telling TIME in a statement: “President Trump has been consistently calling for transparency related to the Epstein files.”Jena-Lisa Jones, another survivor who gathered at the Capitol, directed her remarks squarely at Trump. “I beg you, President Trump: Please stop making this political,” she said. “It is not about you…You are our President. Please start acting like it. Show some class, show some real leadership, show that you actually care about the people other than yourself.” Jones added that she voted for Trump, but that “your behavior on this issue has been a national embarrassment.”“It is time to take the honest, moral ground and support the release of these files,” she said. “Not to weaponize pieces of the files against random political enemies that did nothing wrong, but to understand who Epstein’s friends were, who covered for him, what financial institutions allowed his trafficking to continue, who knew what he was doing but was too much of a coward to do anything about it.”‘We want him on board’The survivors’ warnings come as the House is set to vote Tuesday afternoon on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Justice Department to make public within 30 days all files, communications and investigative materials related to Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. It would allow the redaction of details identifying victims or interfering with ongoing investigations, but prohibit the department from withholding information over concerns of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity.”The bill is expected to pass with unanimous support after Trump called on all House Republicans to back it, a stark reversal after he spent months working aggressively to block the vote. The effort began last summer, when Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and California Democrat Ro Khanna launched a discharge petition to circumvent Speaker Johnson’s control of the House floor. Trump dismissed the effort as a “hoax,” and the Speaker repeatedly questioned whether the bill adequately protected victims. The effort stalled until last week, when Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in after a two-month delay and became the 218th signature needed to force the vote. Once that threshold was reached, dozens of Republicans came forward to say they would vote yes—and by Sunday night, Trump abruptly reversed course and told Republicans to support the bill.Johnson followed on Tuesday morning, telling his Republican colleagues in a closed-door meeting that he would vote in favor after months of trying to keep the bill off the floor, according to a lawmaker present. His shift, Massie suggested, was more a matter of political necessity than policy conviction. “He’s going to vote for a piece of legislation today that he’s disparaged for four months,” Massie said at the press conference. “However he needs to come on board, we want him on board. So we appreciate that.” But Johnson has also suggested that he would like to see the Senate amend the bill to protect the information of “victims and whistleblowers,” noting at a separate press conference on Tuesday morning that there are also potential national security concerns with releasing intelligence-agency materials. “It is incredibly dangerous to demand that officials or employees of the DOJ declassify materials that originated in other agencies and intelligence agencies,” he said, adding that he got confirmation from Senate Republican leader John Thune that the upper chamber will amend the bill. Massie called such amendments a “red herring,” as he says the bill already includes explicit provisions that allow redactions for victims and for active federal investigations.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the firebrand Georgia Republican who had a public rift with Trump after he called her a “traitor” for supporting the release of the files, stood with the survivors on Tuesday and directly confronted Trump. “I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for six years for,” Greene said. “And I gave him my loyalty for free. I won my first election without his endorsement, beating eight men in a primary, and I’ve never owed him anything. But I fought for him for the policies and for America first. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of Americans and Americans like the women standing behind me.”“I wasn’t a Johnny-come-lately to the MAGA train. I was day one,” she said later. “This has been one of the most destructive things to MAGA is watching the man that we supported early on… Watching this actually turn into a fight has ripped MAGA apart. And the only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files. And the American people won’t tolerate any other bulls—.”Greene predicted a unanimous House vote, while warning that “the real test will be will the Department of Justice release the files, or will it all remain tied up in the investigation?”‘A beacon of hope’Sky Roberts, the brother of the late Virginia Giuffre, spoke through tears as he described his sister’s legacy and the efforts to silence her that he said “did not work.” Giuffre, one of the best-known survivors of Epstein’s abuse, died by suicide earlier this year. “Virginia’s story is one that should have been filled with promise,” Roberts said. “But instead, it became a harrowing tale of exploitation and survival.” He said “the most destructive wound they inflicted was that of forced complicity, a betrayal of self,” but insisted that “Virginia’s spirit could not be broken. She became a beacon of hope, a warrior, fighting not just for herself, but for every survivor who suffered in silence.”The Justice Department has already turned over tens of thousands of pages of Epstein-related records to the House Oversight Committee, which is conducting a separate investigation. That probe has released emails and other documents showing Epstein’s ties to global leaders, Wall Street figures, and political insiders, including Trump himself. But lawmakers and survivors say the public release remains incomplete and heavily filtered—and that demands from Trump and some Senate Republicans for further amendments risk introducing new delays.“Do not muck it up in the Senate,” Massie said, warning that any Senate changes would force the bill back to the House and could amount to “just another delay tactic.” Khanna added that the survivors would be asking Trump directly for a meeting, saying their presence had become “the moral center of this effort.”With the bill expected to pass the House unanimously, the next step rests with the Senate, where Thune has so far been noncommittal on whether he would bring the measure up for a floor vote.But some Senate Republicans have signaled that they would pressure Thune to act quickly. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, on Monday came out in favor of releasing the files. “I’ve said for months that the administration should release the Epstein files, and I appreciate that the House is finally set to take up a vote on a bill that would do just that,” she posted on X. “The American people deserve transparency, and it is time that those involved with Epstein’s horrific criminal operation are held accountable.”Senate Democrats, however, are exploring procedural options to force action or at least make Republicans publicly oppose the release. “Americans are sick and tired of the privileged and the powerful abusing the system to avoid any accountability—this must end,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, who authored a Senate version of the Massie-Khanna bill, tells TIME. “A strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives massively ups the pressure on Senate Republican leadership to hold a vote. The American people deserve answers and the survivors deserve justice. That justice will never be achieved unless the Senate holds a vote on the House bill.”Epstein’s connections to a broad swath of wealthy and powerful men have fueled years of speculation and conspiracy theories, particularly after Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department said in July that it had no “client list” of people who participated in Epstein’s abuse. That announcement inflamed many of Trump’s allies, who have accused the government of concealing names and details.Trump and Epstein were known to socialize in the 1990s in Palm Beach, Fla., when Epstein frequented Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club. Flight logs show Trump flew at least once on Epstein’s private jet. After Epstein’s arrest in 2019, Trump said the two men had fallen out 15 years earlier because Epstein had hired away some of Trump’s employees.Trump has long denied having any prior knowledge of Epstein’s conduct, and has sought to cast efforts to release more Epstein files as a politically motivated attempt by Democrats to damage him, calling the broader investigation “a hoax.” But new emails released by House Democrats last week have brought their relationship back into the spotlight, with the late financier allegedly stating that Trump knew “about the girls” and that one of his alleged victims “spent hours” at his house with the President. Trump said he knew “nothing about that” in response to the claims made in the emails.