US President Donald Trump said Republicans in the House of Representatives should vote to release all documents relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

It is a rare example of Trump backtracking because of opposition within his own Republican Party.

"House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late on Sunday.

"[I]t's time to move on from this Democrat hoax perpetrated by radical left lunatics in order to deflect from the great success of the Republican Party," he wrote.

House to vote on Epstein files

Congress is to vote this week on whether to publish files related to a federal sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on those charges.

The disgraced financier was previously convicted of soliciting prostitution with an underage girl.

Trump's critics had accused him of trying to conceal details about his own alleged wrongdoing — something the president denies — by opposing the vote.

Before Trump's surprise backflip on releasing the files, it seemed that Republican supporters of the bill had enough votes to pass it in the House anyway. It is unclear if the measure will pass the Senate.

If it passes both the House and the Senate, the bill would force the Justice Department to release all documents and communications related to Epstein.

Whose names are in the unreleased Epstein documents?

Last week, the House Oversight Committee released thousands of emails and other documents belonging to the Epstein estate.

It's one of many tranches of files that have been published this year in the case which has become a political headache for the Trump administration.

These latest documents are raising fresh calls for more transparency around the case.

In a 2019 email, Epstein wrote to a journalist saying Trump "knew about the girls." The White House has accused Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the president.

Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the inclusion of someone's name in files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.

Edited by: Zac Crellin