The Republican-controlled US Congress voted almost unanimously on Tuesday to force the release of Justice Department files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an outcome President Donald Trump had fought for months before ending his opposition.

Two days after Trump’s abrupt about-face, the House of Representatives passed the measure with a vote of 427-1, sending a resolution requiring the release of all unclassified records on Epstein to the Republican-majority Senate, which swiftly approved it, setting the stage for the bill to go to Trump for his signature.

The public and increasingly bitter feud among Republicans over the Epstein files had fractured relations between Trump and some of his most ardent supporters.

Before the House vote, about two dozen survivors of Epstein’s alleged abuse joined a trio of Democratic and Republican lawmakers outside the US Capitol to urge the release of the records.

The women held photographs of their younger selves, the age at which they said they first encountered Epstein, a New York financier who fraternised with some of the most powerful men in the country.

After the vote, they stood to applaud lawmakers from the House’s public gallery, some of them crying and hugging each other.