Thomas Massie’s Strategy To Dig Even Deeper Into The Epstein Files

Rep. Thomas Massie has gone toe-to-toe with the president of the United States, the speaker of the House and the attorney general in just the last few months. And he says there’s more to come.

The libertarian Republican from rural Kentucky has long been a headache for party leaders, but he’s taken it to another level by co-authoring bipartisan legislation that compelled the Justice Department to release vast troves of documents related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In an interview with POLITICO Magazine in his Capitol Hill office, Massie boasted that some 3 million files have already been released, even as he said he’d continue to bring pressure on the DOJ to reverse redactions in the documents.

Massie was the sole Republican to spar with Attorney General Pam Bondi at a combative congressional hearing last week, but he said for now, he won’t pursue efforts to hold her in contempt for not fully releasing the files.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it,” he said. “When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and when the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don’t think I'm going to change what I’m doing just yet.”

Massie also joined several other Republicans recently to buck President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson on legislation that would block some Trump tariffs. And he had an ominous prediction for GOP leadership in the coming months.

“On any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done,” he said. “I think you’re going to see more defections.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

I want to start with the recent Bondi hearing. You had some heated interactions with her. What did you come away with from that interaction? 

Not necessarily for my own exchange, but just overall I think she looked weak and frustrated when she started talking about the Dow Jones, which has literally nothing to do with her job. I thought that looked bad. [She] kind of had this stack of insults that were pre-prepared — in politics you might call it oppo research — and you could see her shuffling through them to try and find which one matched the person who was trying to ask her a question at the time. She found my card like right at the end, as you can see she was looking for it.

What do you make of the attorney general coming to the Hill to testify in a general oversight hearing and then dishing out these flashcards about members of Congress?

This was her first appearance in front of the House of Representatives, and I think the public consensus is that she didn't do a great job. Obviously, I prefer her politics to Merrick Garland's, but he was better as a witness in terms of weathering it and looking credible, even if he didn't give us the answers he was supposed to.

Did you get any substantive answers you were looking for? 

She did admit that they changed the redactions [on Epstein documents] within 40 minutes of me finding the inappropriate redactions. I think that was a win. You can approach these hearings in different ways. If you're not comfortable mixing it up with the witness, you can just give a five-minute speech. Or, if you're thinking the witness is probably not going to be cooperative and not answer the questions, then you ask questions that sort of answer themselves when they don't answer the question.

Although I genuinely wanted to know if they could track the individual redactions and who did them, because there could be somebody at DOJ who kind of reports to Pam Bondi, but is kind of at another level than Pam Bondi. The people who were there for life sort of run the place. They know how to get things done. I did think it was really fishy that there were thousands of instances of Leslie Wexner's name, but the one instance that would've shown that Kash Patel may have committed perjury was redacted. And so my question legitimately was, who made this redaction? Because if I could find out who made that redaction, then I would go over to the DOJ computers and put that name in and see what else that person was in charge of redacting.

And then in the instance of releasing, that's the grossest incompetence I've ever seen in government. An attorney sends you a list of the victims he represents so that you can redact their names, and you release the whole list. It's like your worst nightmare. And I would guess that the attorney never in his wildest dreams dreamed that the DOJ would be that incompetent.

Do you have any plans to take legal action to fully redact any of these documents? Obviously they've been redacted multiple times.

I think six months ago, nobody ever thought we would be where we are now. I mean, we have 3 million files released. We do have some evidence that at least at some point the government thought there were co-conspirators, that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women to other men. So that's a victory right now. And things are unfolding. If you look at the overall pace over the last six months, the pace has actually picked up, it hasn't slowed down.

I don't think it's necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we're winning it. When the attorney general is reduced to a stack of pre-prepared insults to deliver, and then the DOJ is responding to my every tweet with additional unredactions, I don't think I'm going to change what I'm doing just yet. We're at a stage right now where we still have steam.

With that strategy, are you still planning on holding Bondi in contempt?

Well, to do that, we need two or three Republicans. I do think within the conference our momentum is gaining some steam as well. When I go over to the DOJ terminals, I see Republicans interested in this who didn't sign the discharge petition [to bring the Epstein files bill to the floor]. And I think they're being compelled to do that because they see that there's some there there. And they're also being asked by their constituents, well, what are you doing?

Where do you think the disclosures go from here? Is there anything else Congress can do other than contempt to prod the administration along? 

The strongest tool we have now and have wielded through all of this is public pressure. And the hearing was useful in that regard. The recent document dump is useful in this regard. I heard the White House press secretary say we're moving on. And if you look on the internet, people are sharing that clip and saying, no, we're not.

What do you make of her saying that? And even the president recently has said again, he thinks the country should move on to something else. 

Yeah, he's decided that since these files don't further implicate him in his opinion and exonerate him, that we should just move on now. Throughout this whole thing, Ro Khanna and I have taken great pains to keep this from becoming a partisan exercise because if it devolves into who shows up in the files more, Bill Clinton or Donald Trump, that's just the typical food fight that you have in Washington D.C. And then you end up in a stalemate where you can't get a bipartisan vote.

Trump often wields power on Capitol Hill through intimidation and fear. That obviously has not broken through on the Epstein matter as much. Several of you defied him on tariffs as well. How is that toolkit wearing thin for him, that he's not able to badger enough Republicans into falling in line? 

The margin is razor-thin, so on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done. And what's happening is that the retirement caucus is growing and primary days are coming up and passing. Once we get past March, April and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you're going to see more defections.

Because quietly and privately, people are telling me they agree with me. And so there are people who plan on running again who will be past their primaries or certainly past the date at which the administration could put another Navy SEAL up to run against somebody. And then there's the retirement caucus, which includes people who don't want to retire, but redistricting is going to take them out or pit them against another Republican when they may retire for that reason.

Why has that sentiment changed in this term, and not as much in the first term?

I think there's some fatigue, I call it rubber stamp fatigue. People who get elected to Congress, almost none of you got here by mistake. Everybody's got flaws but everybody who gets here is driven and probably could accomplish other things besides Congress with that level of drive. They could be entrepreneurs or make a lot of money as lawyers. Nobody graduates from high school and signs in their yearbook that they want to be the class rubber stamp.

And so you have competent, driven individuals — some of these are military officers — who are being told every week to stand down, bite their tongue, sit on their hands, do what they're told, be part of the team and put their brain in neutral, and that kind of job will make you tired by noon.

How big do you think is the caucus of people whom the president has no control over anymore? Do you think it is just a handful right now?

It's really just the retirement caucus. And so they have to weigh the cost of alienating the president of the United States in their future job. Maybe they want to be the head of a trade association where crossing swords with the president would disqualify them later.

When was the last time you heard directly from the president or his team about anything?

Does the prayer breakfast count? I mean, he called me a moron at the prayer breakfast.

Just on the stage, thousands of pastors, including some from my own district, who apologized to me. They were literally here in my office that day and praying with me. And then they go to the prayer breakfast and hear the president say that. They are not impressed and I don't think anybody was impressed by his performance at the prayer breakfast. It was completely political. But to answer your question, last time I heard from him was at the prayer breakfast and people said well what's your response to that? And I just said I'm glad to know I'm in his prayers.

Have you talked to him or anyone on his team? 

I talked to him when they needed my vote to get the “big, beautiful bill” to the floor, and he told me that he would tell Chris LaCivita to quit running ads against me if I helped him get the bill to the floor. And I said, “I want to be completely clear with you.” And I told him twice. I said, “I'm not voting for the bill when it gets to the floor. I want you to understand that's not part of this agreement.” And he goes: “I understand. I get it. That’s fine.” Those were his three things he said.

And then they just kept running the ads. And then when the success of the Epstein Files Transparency Act was imminent, I think he just succumbed to Massie derangement syndrome at that point.

And that was when you were on the phone with the president himself during that conversation over the rule for the legislation.

In a room with the speaker of the House. There were two other members of Congress in there who made the same deal. So they got nothing for their vote either.

When was the last time you talked to Speaker Johnson about the Epstein matter at all? 

One day they needed my vote and I offered to give them my vote if he would issue a press release thanking me for my good work on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. That's all I required to get my vote. And I think he probably went and gave somebody else a bill to pass instead of doing the public statement.

That's the last time I talked to him about that. And we had a serious discussion. He was like, you know, I can't do that. He said the bill was flawed and worked against it. Well, obviously it wasn't flawed. It's working right now. And so anyways, I haven't talked to him since then about that.

With the exception of when they put [“crazy stuff”] in the rule, I've been pretty reasonable on these votes. And I've asked Mike Johnson, tell me why I should keep being reasonable?

Do you think you could go further than what you are doing right now? 

Oh yeah. Yeah. I’ve voted for a lot of rules when they’ve needed me.

In Europe, we're seeing lots of consequences and resignations from the Epstein disclosures. The UK government is in tumult over it. We're not seeing that same reaction in the United States at least yet. Why do you think it's different here?

I think the way that politics is structured in Europe is more ephemeral and reputational. They can recall a prime minister. They can have a vote of confidence. I think their head's always on the chopping block. And so if reputationally somebody becomes a burden to the party, they might be quicker to jettison that person. And with the case of Prince Andrew, it's all about reputation with royalty, right? They're supposed to be better than everybody else, and when they aren't, they can't be in the club.

Here in the United States, once you become the ruling party in the White House, you're there for four years. It's almost unheard of that you would switch horses in the middle of the stream in the United States like they do in Europe. And also because we don't have a coalition in our version of parliament. The president right now uses Congress as a rubber stamp, and he doesn't have to really worry about the coalition falling apart in parliament. He doesn't have to worry about members of his own party defecting. So I think they're going to just keep taking on water here. If reputations mattered more in the United States, Howard Lutnick would already have resigned.

How do you feel the Epstein matter is playing in your primary? The president is pushing in on the primary challenge against you. How do you feel like this is shaping your race at this point?

Well, there are a lot of factors that play back home. You've got to understand, you can't pretend that things in D.C. are the same as they are in Kentucky’s fourth district. When I undertook this cause to get this bill passed, I didn't think it would hurt me back home, and I didn't think it would help me back home. You know, I've taken up for raw milk, ending the Federal Reserve. Those are causes that maybe they’re nationally popular, but back home, maybe they only motivate a low single-digit percent of my voters, right?

And I thought the Epstein case might be similar to that — a national concern that doesn't have a lot of effect or a disproportionate amount of influence in my district. But I was surprised to find out that it does. This isn't a boutique or niche issue back home. This is a big deal back home, and it's also shaped the demographics of my support back home. The people who were upset that my entire family posed with machine guns are now voting for me. And the president has control over the people who get 100 percent of their news from FOX.

So I've lost support there, but I've gained support from Republican soccer moms.

Here's where I have to laugh every time somebody says "Oh, you just did this because it's politically expedient." There's nothing politically expedient about pissing off the president and drawing 10 or 20 million dollars into your primary and causing them to double down. He was already a little bit annoyed at me for the votes on the “big, beautiful bill,” the [continuing resolution to fund the government], and even [the speaker’s race for] Mike Johnson. But once I did the Epstein thing, I crossed the rubicon. There was no, “I'm sorry, we misunderstood each other. We can be friends now.” So, it's drawn a lot of fire from outside of my district and from the White House into my district, but in the district among my people it’s popular.

And it’s done one other thing: It has disarmed completely the argument that I never get anything done. When you go to your social media and half your feed is about something that I’ve done — if my opponent tries to say on his social media, “Massie is a gadfly and he never gets anything done,” they’ll just dogpile him with all the things that are happening because of me.

So it helps back home.