United States President Donald Trump has announced he has signed a bill ordering the release of files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Trump made the announcement on social media late on Wednesday after months of pressure on his administration to disclose the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and his connections to elites in politics, business and entertainment.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi had earlier told a news conference that the administration would “follow the law” and “encourage maximum transparency” in the case.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which passed the US Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support this week, compels the US Department of Justice to release all unclassified materials related to the disgraced financier in a “searchable and downloadable format” within 30 days.

The legislation includes provisions allowing authorities to withhold child sex exploitation material and victims’ identifying details as well as information that concerns active investigations or “national defense or foreign policy”.

But the text also stipulates that no record should be withheld on the basis of “embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary”.

While thousands of files related to Epstein have been made public, a judge who presided over a case involving the financier earlier this year said the total trove of files came to roughly 100,000 pages.

Epstein’s numerous elite connections, enormous wealth and mysterious background have fuelled speculation and conspiracy theories for years.

Official explanations, including a joint memo by Trump’s Justice Department and FBI that concluded there was not evidence to support the prosecution of Epstein associates, have repeatedly failed to quell public intrigue in the case.

In announcing the move to release the files, Trump, who had resisted calls for greater transparency in the case, sought to cast the controversy around Epstein as a greater liability for Democrats than his fellow Republicans.

Writing on his platform Truth Social, Trump called Epstein a “lifelong” Democrat and noted his associations with high-profile Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who on Wednesday took leave from teaching at Harvard University amid the fallout of emails detailing his friendly relationship with the late financier.

Neither Clinton nor Summers have been implicated in any criminal wrongdoing in their associations with Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing sex trafficking charges.

“Perhaps the truth about these Democrats, and their associations with Jeffrey Epstein, will soon be revealed, because I HAVE JUST SIGNED THE BILL TO RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Epstein’s associations spanned the political aisle, including prominent Republicans as well as Democrats.

Trump was himself friendly with Epstein during the 1990s and early 2000s, and his name featured prominently in Epstein emails released by US lawmakers this month.

In one email sent in 2011, Epstein told his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump had “spent hours” at his home with a sex trafficking victim.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

After Trump’s announcement, critics raised doubts that his administration would follow through on its commitment to transparency in the case.

US Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat who represents California, said he was “not at all confident” that the legislation would be implemented as written.

“I think if past is prelude, what we can expect is more stonewalling, more cover-up, more inartful ways of explaining why they’re covering up,” Schiff said in an interview with MS NOW host Chris Hayes.

“I think when this chapter of history is written, it will be a test case in how not to handle a crisis.”