Massie Accuses Bondi of 'Criminal Negligence' in Epstein Release
The Kentucky congressman tells Reason that Republicans and Democrats engaged in a “cover-up” of epic proportions that will haunt U.S. politics for years.
"I'm trying not to become apathetic and subscribe to the memes that say, 'You're not going to vote your way out of this,' but I want to point out that [Americans] voted for four different administrations, and they're all part of the [Jeffrey Epstein] cover-up," Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) told Reason in a podcast interview released earlier today.
Massie partnered with Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.) on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Department of Justice (DOJ) to "to publish (in a searchable and downloadable format) all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ's possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein."
But the "sloppiness" of the DOJ in redacting and releasing those files amounts to "criminal negligence" on behalf of Attorney General Pam Bondi, says Massie.
"It's criminal. She's broken the law," he adds.
Massie points to several documents posted on the DOJ's Epstein Library that redact the names of alleged sexual predators while exposing the names of alleged victims as evidence that Bondi's DOJ has violated the law, which permits them to "withhold certain information such as the personal information of victims."
"They've been utterly incompetent. Incompetent to the point that it almost seems like you'd have to be doing this on purpose to be this incompetent," says Massie.
Massie grilled Bondi in a Congressional hearing today shortly after Reason conducted this interview. During that exchange, Bondi accused Massie, currently serving his eighth Congressional term, of being a "failed politician" with "Trump Derangement Syndrome."
Massie told Reason that he hoped Bondi would explain to Congress why the DOJ would release a document entitled, "Victims' Names" with 31 of the 32 alleged victims' names unredacted.
The redactions are asymmetrical, protecting the accused while exposing the accusers, according to Massie. For example, in a document in which the FBI named Epstein financier Les Wexner as a possible coconspirator in a child sex trafficking case, Wexner's name was redacted until Massie and Khanna viewed the unredacted document, publicly named Wexner, and shamed the DOJ into revealing his name.
The process of unveiling the Epstein files demonstrates how difficult achieving actual government transparency has become in an age of overclassification, a problem Massie's Kentucky colleague Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) complained of in 2023:
Executive branch officials from both political parties continue to arbitrarily overclassify government information to prevent oversight and withhold information from the public.
According to the National Archives and Records Administration, in 2017, over 4 million Americans with security clearances classified nearly 50 million documents, a system that cost American taxpayers over $18 billion.
It took an act of Congress to force the executive branch to publish a publicly searchable database of the Epstein files, in contrast to the theatrics of Bondi's release of binders filled with highly selective Epstein-related disclosures to hand-picked influencers at the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term. And now, only under continuous public pressure is the DOJ making available unredacted documents that finally give the American public a fuller view of the players in Epstein's network and the efforts of law enforcement to investigate that network.
Massie tells Reason that still more transparency is needed, the most pressing need being the removal of redactions on FBI summaries of witness and victim interviews—known as Form FD-302s—that would shed more light on the nature of the crimes law enforcement investigated and allow Congress and the public to evaluate the soundness of such investigations.
Watch the full interview with Massie for deeper discussion of what he's seen in the unredacted files, his response to critics who say he's instigated a witch hunt, and what the implications of the Epstein case are for the future of American politics.
