A straightforward, unanimous vote on Tuesday would have prevented the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s case files, both from Democrats and Republicans. However, Louisiana’s Republican Representative Clay Higgins did not agree with the consensus.
His lone dissent demonstrated his past propensity to take positions at the Republican Party’s extreme.
The measure received a 427-plus vote, including 216 Republicans, in the US House. The Senate then approved the bill, allowing for President Donald Trump’s signature to be sent there.
What we know is as follows:
Clay Higgins, who is he?
Since 2017, Higgins has represented the third congressional district of Louisiana. He frequently occupies positions that are not traditionally held by Republicans and is regarded as one of the House’s most extreme members. He is a vocal supporter of Trump.
Higgins has a history of controversy-generating media attention. He worked in law enforcement before joining the Congressional delegation, where he was the subject of numerous misconduct complaints. He later gained notoriety online for his obscene, tough-talking Crime Stoppers videos, which helped him launch his political career.
In Washington, he has continued to speak out loudly. He threatened the use of force against armed protesters in a message posted on Facebook in 2020, along with a picture of Black demonstrators carrying lengthy guns. You won’t leave if we recognize threat, he wrote. The post was later removed from Facebook.
Higgins claimed that the Chinese Communist Party had developed and manipulated the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic and was openly skeptical of it.
Higgins claimed that the US Capitol’s “ghost buses” on January 6th, 2021, were intended to elicit the violence. He claimed they carried “prosecutors” and other covert agents. A mob of Trump supporters seized the Capitol on January 6 to halt the 2020 election’s certification. The Higgins claim has never been supported by any evidence.
In response to Trump’s remarks about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, including the president’s unsubstantiated claim that Haitian immigrants were eating pets, Higgins once more drew backlash in 2024.
According to Higgins, Haiti is “the Western Hemisphere’s nastiest nation.” He was confronted by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who later deleted a post about Haitians eating pets and claimed he was speaking about gang members, not all of Haitians.
Before joining Congress , Higgins was well-versed in the criticism of the media. After receiving criticism for one of his hardline anticrime videos, he left the St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office in 2016.
The seventh of eight children, Higgins. When he was six, his family moved to Covington, Louisiana, where he was born.
He claimed in 2017 that his workdays ranged from 16 to 18 hours and that he occasionally slept on an air mattress in his Washington, DC, office.
Higgins has four wives. With his fourth wife, Becca, he currently resides in Port Barre, Louisiana.
What made Higgins opposed?
As the committee’s lead investigator, Higgins had previously indicated his support for the investigation.
However, Higgins stated in a post on X that he had been against making the documents public and that he had been against making the documents public. He claimed that he had been opposed to making the documents public.
“I have always voted NO” on this bill. What the bill’s shortcomings three months ago are still present today. It ends 250 years of American criminal justice system. According to Higgins, this bill exposes and injures thousands of innocent people, including those who provided alibis, relatives, and others. This type of broad release of criminal investigative files, which was made available to a rabid media, will absolutely cause harm to innocent people, if passed in its current form. Not by my vote.
His concerns echoed those of House Speaker Mike Johnson and other legislators. Supporters of the bill rebuffed their claims, saying that safeguards had already been put in place to stop the release of any sensitive information.
The Oversight Committee is conducting a thorough investigation, which has already resulted in the release of more than 60 000 pages of Epstein case documents. That effort will continue in a way that guarantees innocent Americans all the due protections. When the bill returns to the House, he said, “I will vote for it if the Senate amends it to properly address] the] privacy of victims and other Americans, who are named but not criminally implicated.”
In reality, the release of the files does, however, include redactions of portions that would otherwise reveal witnesses, victims, their families, and whistleblowers.
Just before the vote ended, Higgins made an appearance by raising his phone and taking a picture of the House voting board, which contained his dissention.
I have always voted NO on this bill from the beginning. What the bill’s shortcomings three months ago are still present today. It ends 250 years of American criminal justice system. This bill, as it is written, exposes and injures thousands of innocent witnesses, …
Source: Aljazeera
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