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The House on Tuesday approved a bill directing the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in a near-unanimous vote that was a stunning turn for an effort that Republicans had worked for months to kill.

Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived in the chamber, which would clear it for President Trump’s signature. Mr. Trump, who toiled for months to derail the bill but reversed himself once it was clear it would pass overwhelmingly, has said he would sign it.

A federal judge has dealt another blow to President Trump’s efforts to shutter Voice of America, a federally funded news group that had provided reporting to 360 million people every week in 49 languages until March. Judge Paul L. Friedman of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia blocked the president’s August executive order that cancelled collective bargaining agreements with the union that represented Voice of America employees, according to the judge’s written ruling filed on Tuesday. Trump’s efforts to close the entire news group have been stalled after pushback from courts and Congress.

Republican Clay Higgins was the sole vote against releasing the Epstein files.

Representative Clay Higgins, the Louisiana Republican who was the sole “no” vote in Congress on Wednesday against a bill to compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, has long stood out as a hard-right conspiracy theorist even in a Republican conference that trends that way.

In the past, Mr. Higgins, an ardent supporter of President Trump, has claimed that “ghost buses” took agents provocateurs to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to instigate the riot. He has made fantastical claims, promoting a theory that 200 F.B.I. informants were “embedded in the crowd” and “inside the Capitol dressed as Trump supporters.”

The Senate has adjourned for the evening, meaning that despite having agreed to quickly send the bill to compel the release of the Epstein files to the president’s desk, that will not happen until the Senate is back in session on Wednesday.

President Trump is prepared to sign the Epstein files bill as soon as it arrives at his desk, a White House official said.

For Trump, Epstein is the story that won’t go away.

It’s the one story line President Trump hasn’t been able to evade.

During his first term and now in his second, Mr. Trump has managed to deflect and defeat news cycles he views as negative to him, often by quickly diverting the media and public’s attention to a new topic.

t was pretty remarkable for the Republican majority in the Senate to agree to the Democratic leader’s maneuver to automatically pass the Epstein bill. Typically, the Senate’s majority would not want to see the action dictated by the minority. That the move worked underscores how much Republicans want to be rid of the issue, and quickly. The approach also avoids a recorded vote.

Schumer’s effort has succeeded. The bill will automatically pass once it is delivered to the Senate and advance to the president’s desk.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and minority leader, is about to push for unanimous consent to immediately pass the Epstein bill as soon as it comes over from the House. “Epstein victim groups have made clear that they support this bill as written, without amendments,” he said. “We should listen to them and pass this bill quickly.”

The move dares any Republican to object and go on the record moving to block a bill that just passed by a near-unanimous vote in the House.

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All but one member of the House voted to pass a bill on Tuesday that demanded the Justice Department to release the Epstein files. Hours later, Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, won unanimous agreement for the Senate to pass the measure as soon as it arrived. President Trump, who was once friends with Epstein, initially opposed the vote, but caved to pressure and said he would support the measure.CreditCredit…Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

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