Thomas Massie: Epstein Conspiracy Is 'Bigger Than Watergate'
Rep. Thomas Massie explains why he is risking his political career over the Epstein files, details what he saw in the unredacted documents, and argues that the scandal reveals a bipartisan failure of accountability stretching across multiple administrations.
Today's guest is Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.). He joins Zach Weissmueller to discuss why he coauthored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, what motivated him to put his political career at risk, and why he believes the Justice Department (DOJ) has engaged in a long-running cover-up to protect powerful figures connected to Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie walks through what he saw while reviewing the unredacted files at the DOJ, including disputed redactions, internal FBI documents, and evidence suggesting that senior officials misrepresented whether Epstein had coconspirators. Massie also makes the case for why Attorney General Pam Bondi may be guilty of criminal negligence in her handling of this investigation. The interview explores internal Republican divisions over the case, why Massie has called for the resignation of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and how the Epstein case has reshaped his understanding of power in Washington, D.C. Massie argues that this scandal is larger than Watergate, spans four administrations, and raises a defining moral test for politicians, media figures, and voters alike.
The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and politicians who are defining the 21st century in terms of individual freedom and autonomy.
0:00—Why Massie is risking his political career over Epstein files
3:53—Discoveries from the unredacted files
8:22—Are DOJ redactions in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act?
12:32—Examining the evidence of an Epstein client list
15:13—Why Howard Lutnick should resign
17:57—The risk in releasing names and guilt by association
21:49—Why the Epstein conspiracy is bigger than Watergate
23:30—The future of the Republican Party
Transcript
This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.
Zach Weissmueller: Congressman Thomas Massie, thank you for coming on The Reason Interview.
Thomas Massie: Well, great to be on. Thanks for having me.
Let's start by talking about the Epstein files. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that you put your political career on the line to get these out with the Epstein Files Transparency Act you co-authored with Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.). You've been under relentless attack from President Donald Trump ever since, and you're facing a serious primary challenge with a lot of financial backing because of it.
Did you expect this might happen? And if so, why did you decide this issue was important enough that it would be worth the cost?
Well, I'm glad you set it up that way because I always find it laughable when people say I'm just doing this for the politics. Look, I am getting the crap beat out of me politically for doing this. But, you know, the most popular politician in my state, who is President Trump—obviously it'd be a whole lot easier politically to get re-elected if I just did what he wanted and ignored the Epstein files and called them a hoax—but I'm not willing to do that.
I've met with the survivors. This is personal to me now. And so it's true that my political career is on the line—my political life—but my own health and well-being could very well be too. I've upset a lot of billionaires who obviously aren't of high moral character and have done some really shady stuff.
What first pulled you into this and made you decide, "This is something I do need to stake my career on"?
I saw Pam Bondi hand out the binders to the influencers, and we found out that was a nothingburger. And then I actually got to meet Pam Bondi in person at the Department of Justice. We went over and had dinner—the Judiciary Committee that I'm on—and my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, said I should ask her when Phase Two would come out.
I asked Pam Bondi that, in person, very politely. She basically said, there's nothing but child porn left—nothing, it's disgusting—and nobody would want to see it. And at that point, I realized that the Trump administration had undertaken a cover-up and that they had no intention of releasing these files. Frankly, that's what got my interest up about this.
Later, this summer, Rep. Ro Khanna offered an amendment in the Rules Committee. Because it's so hard to get a bill to the floor, he tried it as an amendment to an existing bill, and he brought it to the Rules Committee for their permission. And an interesting thing happened: every Democrat voted for the Democrat amendment, but one Republican did as well.
And I thought, wow, if I could get every Democrat on the floor of the House and a smattering of Republicans, I might be able to succeed with the discharge petition—which is one of the hardest ways to pass a bill. You're basically going over the Speaker's head, and you have to convince a majority of Congress that you know better than the Speaker on that given topic.
Three other colleagues on the Republican side—interestingly, all women: Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Rep. Lauren Boebert—they are heroes as well. They've all paid a big price for undertaking this. And in some ways, Marjorie's political career ended because of this. But it's more of a symptom than it was the cause, I think.
It's a symptom that MAGA is splitting because Republican members of Congress are continuously being forced to choose between the president's promises and what the president is doing right now in real time. And they're diverging.
Obviously, a lot more material has come out since those binders were trotted out. So that just seems to vindicate the purpose of the bill, and it's also becoming more apparent why people didn't want that material to come out.
You and a handful of other Congress members visited the DOJ building to view the unredacted Epstein files on Monday, and you emerged calling for the unredaction of the names of six men, and those names have since become public.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche tweeted that one of the documents that you were looking at had numerous victim names, and they unredacted Les Wexner's name from the document. This is, of course, the former owner of Victoria's Secret—a well-known funder of Epstein, a client of Epstein, possibly his biggest client.
And Blanche says his name already appears in the file thousands of times. DOJ is hiding nothing.
What is your response to that? Because he's pointing out that Wexner was long known to be Epstein's biggest client and appears in documents thousands of times. But why was the redaction of his name in that particular instance troubling to you?
Well, you know, that tweet that he did is self-conflicting. I mean, he's admitting that they did cover up Les Wexner's name, and he's uncovering it at the same time. His defense is that "Oh, well, Les Wexner's name appears a thousand times in these documents." Well, guess what? My name appears in them at least a dozen times.
Just because your name appears in the documents doesn't mean that you're a co-conspirator. But the interesting thing about this redaction is it's an actual FBI document that lists the co-conspirators and lists Wexner as a co-conspirator to child sex trafficking. We're not talking about prostitution or just sex trafficking—child sex trafficking.
We all know Wexner had money, and maybe you might say, well, this might have been tax evasion, and they were conspiring to do some business deal in the Virgin Islands or something like that. No, he's a co-conspirator in this document, according to the FBI. So this is significant. It's the most significant appearance of Wexner's name.
And this gets to the point. People say, "Well, Massie, why didn't you run to the floor, why didn't you run and say his name? You had it in your head." Look, this is a game of chess; it's not a game of checkers. Please quit chewing on the checkers.
The goal here is to get that document released that shows that the FBI considered him a co-conspirator. Because this is in direct conflict with Kash Patel's testimony to me personally in the Judiciary Committee and to Sen. Kennedy in the Senate, where he said that Epstein trafficked to no one and that they had no evidence of any co-conspirators.
Well, this is the FBI's own document. So the question is: What evidence did you have that led you to believe he was a co-conspirator? Why was that not in this document, Tom? And what was the decision like when you decided not to pursue Wexner?
Because the Epstein Files Transparency Act requires the DOJ to publish publicly all internal memos, emails, notes—everything about decisions to prosecute or not prosecute.
OK, so that's what you're hoping to get now—what was the decision-making process that led to him being listed as a co-conspirator in a child sex trafficking case? Because, you know, you could make the argument that he was never actually charged as a coconspirator. So is there some reason to disbelieve that the FBI investigated and just didn't find the evidence?
If there is reason to believe that, it needs to be in the files, because the Epstein Files Transparency Act requires them to publish internal communications about decisions whether to prosecute and investigate.
So in addition to those other redacted co-conspirator names, there are some other troubling redactions I've come across that I want to raise here.
These are correspondence. One is someone saying "age 11," and there's some sort of photo attached to it. Another one says, "Thank you for a fun night. Your littlest girl was a little naughty." Another one says, "New Brazilian just arrived, sexy and cute, about nine years old." And all of the senders here are redacted, so we don't know who was sending these emails to Epstein.
And then there's this issue of what are called the FBI 302 files which, my understanding is, are interviews that the FBI conducted with either witnesses or alleged victims. And then this is the summary of those interviews.
And this is what some of these look like. For our audio-only listeners, this page is just a giant black box. So this is not exactly government transparency at its finest.
What is your best understanding of the DOJ's rationale for these kinds of redactions, and are they in legal compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act?
Well, they're sloppy redactions. I looked at—I think I looked at all three of those emails in the unredacted files. I looked at at least a couple of them, and they were from a woman at a modeling agency—Mademoiselle Modeling Agency.
And I won't say the name of the woman. I think the presumption is, among the DOJ, at least in their sloppy redactions, if you're a woman, you couldn't possibly be a co-conspirator. And the problem with that is, they released the names of victims in their document dump who are clearly women and girls.
Now, one of the emails that troubled me was—you may remember—it said, "Thanks for the torture video. I really enjoyed it." So I went and looked at that one. Turns out it wasn't a woman; they had just redacted the email address.
So I took that email address, threw it into the search engine in the DOJ computer, and found that this was, in fact, a man who had sent it—who, in the email, alludes to sending the torture videos. Solomon was his last name. He's from the United Arab Emirates and was an associate of Jeffrey Epstein's.
So I forced the DOJ to admit—and his first name or title was Sultan—I forced the DOJ to admit that was the man who had sent that email. So that's troubling.
Now, the 302 file that you showed, I've looked at a lot of those. And as it turns out, when you go over and click "unredact" on that big black box, oftentimes what you get is a bunch of white boxes where the file—the DOJ claims—was redacted before they came into possession of it.
And then sometimes you click on the redactions and they don't go away. The DOJ claims the same thing: "This wasn't redacted by us."
Here's the problem: The Epstein Files Transparency Act that Ro Khanna and I wrote requires not just the DOJ to release everything in its possession, but the FBI and the U.S. attorneys.
So if those documents—those 302s—came from the FBI, which they did, and if the FBI still has the originals, which they do, then the FBI has to release those to the DOJ. The attorney general is tasked with the document production, but the FBI and U.S. attorneys are also obligated to produce those documents to the DOJ.
So we have a problem there that's pervasive in these files.
There's been some Associated Press reporting on a supposed DOJ memo that pours cold water on the idea that Epstein was running a large trafficking operation involving a bunch of powerful men.
There's one purported victim that is well-known—Virginia Giuffre—who says Epstein shared her, pimped her out to people like Prince Andrew, with whom she's famously pictured.
But the memo that the A.P. reported on reads, "No other victim has described being expressly directed by either Maxwell or Epstein to engage in sexual activity with other men."
From what you've seen in these unredacted files, have you seen anything approximating an actual client list or something like it that indicates to you that Epstein really was sort of recruiting and then providing girls—either underage or not—to rich, powerful men, and then possibly blackmailing them?
Well, there's a man named Leon Black who is accused by a victim in these documents. There were people in the state of New York who were trying to elevate this case. The woman was bleeding as a result of the assault by Leon Black. And this is a claim that—I believe it was a county in New York, a district attorney, assistant district attorney—tried to elevate to the DOJ. And it looks like the DOJ dragged their feet on that.
So, first of all, that assertion, to me, seems wrong on its face.
Second of all, there's an FBI document that describes almost 100 victims by name—that's in these files. I redacted them and looked at them. It's probably between 80 and 100 victims. It's five columns of names that are 18 long to 19 long, so it's almost 100 names. And then they associate those names with the high-profile people who those people claim abused them.
And then, finally, third problem with this statement is the 302s that you showed us, that are redacted, is where that information would be. So if you show me a redacted 302 and say, "Look, there's nothing in the 302 that says that any of these victims ever claimed that Epstein trafficked them," well, no duh, it's redacted. How can we know?
You have called for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign. You called for that when his name first showed up in the files. And he's now admitting he visited Epstein's island in 2012, even though in a previous interview he very loudly and proudly declared that he had cut off all contact back in 2005.
But he says he was accompanied by his wife and kids and nothing illegal or untoward happened on the island. He made this statement to the media and not to Congress, so he didn't perjure himself in that way.
Why do you still want him to resign, though?
Well, he's standing behind the president. He's clearly one of the president's closest Cabinet members. You see him in a lot of these frames where the president is getting on Air Force One or Marine One, or just in a press conference in the Oval Office—there's Howard Lutnick behind the president.
And twice, when they've talked about the Epstein files, he chuckled—as if this was a big hoax.
It's such a blatant lie that he put out. The lie is close in time, by the way. As far as I can tell, this lie was told around October. So we're just a few weeks away from the lie. The documents come out in November. Then more documents came out here recently, and he's had to backtrack on that.
Something important happened between 2005—when he lied and said he distanced himself—and 2011, 2012 and beyond, when not only did he go to the island, he had phone calls with Jeffrey Epstein. They were involved in businesses together.
The thing that happened between 2005—when Lutnick said he thought the man was disgusting and never had anything to do with him ever again—is in 2008, Jeffrey Epstein became a convicted sex offender.
So that's the problem you have: He was associating in a business with a known convicted sex offender, and he lied about it.
And as you say, it's not perjury, but it goes to the confidence that the American people have in somebody like that, in the Cabinet. Would he have been confirmed by the Senate if we had known that he was lying and had gone to Jeffrey Epstein's island and was in business with Jeffrey Epstein?
I don't think he would have been. And so therefore, he should no longer be a Cabinet member.
Three high level people in Britain who've either resigned, been kicked out, or lost their titles of nobility. We need the same kind of accountability here in our own government.
Let me ask you about one of the main criticisms of the approach you've taken here, which is that a lot of material has been sort of rushed out, is the criticism. So there's some collateral damage—not only to the victims, some of whose names and personal information were made public against their wishes—but also just potentially smearing innocent people with a big guilt-by-association game.
There's one example highlighted by Robby Soave, one of our writers here at Reason, of this hedge fund manager, Glenn Durbin, who is pictured with some minors. These turned out to be his kids—he was just on vacation with them.
So there's material like this that comes out. That was the worry even with Trump. There are allegations against Trump, but it's like anyone can call a tip line and make an allegation against Trump, and it might end up in the files.
Do the critics of this "release it all in a big flood" approach have a point that it risks turning into a bit of a witch hunt, where people are getting a trial by the angry mob instead of a court of law?
I haven't seen a single person in the United States suffer any consequences from this. So, first of all, if somebody were going to bring a suit, they'd have to show that they were harmed, and nobody has standing for that claim. I'm using those terms metaphorically, not literally.
And also, if you were associating with Jeffrey Epstein after 2008, you were associated with a known convicted sex offender who had wild parties. He's not the most savory character. We found from the audio with Ehud Barak, he was kind of a fixer.
And I'm sorry if that hurts your reputation, maybe you should have thought of that before you associated with a convicted sex offender.
And out of the first claim—that the victims are upset about this, or that you've hurt the victims—the victims aren't upset with me. They're upset with the DOJ. 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.
Let me tell you what I'm going to show Pam Bondi today in a hearing here in a little bit. The victims' lawyers sent the DOJ an email—it's titled "Victims' Names"—back in June. He sent it to her not so she could publish it, but so that they could make sure they didn't release any of these names. They could use those names as a search.
She released the entire freakin' document with 31 of those victims' names on it. And we know they touched the document, because they redacted one victim's name from a list of 32 victims and published an email that was titled "Victims' Names."
So it's sloppiness or malice, in your telling—or that's what you're trying to figure out today?
There's this concept called criminal negligence, okay? It's criminal. I don't know what the motive was. Maybe it was negligence, maybe it's intentional—but it's criminal. She's broken the law. And so, that's a problem.
Now, you think the lawyer is mad at me for that happening? You think the victims are mad at me for that? No. That's her own damn fault. And she's in violation of the law when she did it.
Contrast that with a document that was titled "Co-Conspirators of Epstein's Sex Trafficking Conspiracy" and they redacted that one. They redacted the co-conspirators from it.
Let me ask you two big-picture questions to wrap this up, because I know you've got to get back to work.
One is, how do you think the information coming out now should change how we look at U.S. politics and power? Because we know a lot more than we knew, let's say, six months ago. How has it changed how you look at politics and power? How would you suggest people adjust their way of looking at Washington, D.C.?
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 you voted for four different administrations, and they're all part of the cover-up.
So this goes back to the light sentence in 2007. That was the original DOJ, the original attorney general, the original U.S. attorney who cut this deal with Epstein, which we still don't know why they cut the deal.
And so this is bigger than Watergate. If Watergate changed your perception of government, this should definitely do the same. This is bigger than Iran-Contra, because those only happened within one administration. This spans four administrations, and even more—an even higher number of attorneys general.
And it's disgusting.
And what you should know is: It's a big club, and you're not in it.
And if somebody campaigns on something—like releasing the files—and they get in office, and they change their view 180 degrees, maybe they have failed in their mission to drain the swamp. Maybe they've become part of the swamp.
And last question. Your next challenge is the midterms. But after that, I suspect the conversations about the future of the GOP post-Trump will begin in earnest. And this cloud of the Epstein release is going to be hanging over that.
What are the possible trajectories that you see for the party from here and what are you hoping for?
The question a few years from now is: Where were you on the Epstein issue?
Just like before this Epstein thing, I think the question for me was: Where were you during COVID? Were you in favor of the lockdowns and the mandates and the free money? Were you silent, or were you opposed to these things?
And the same thing goes for Epstein: Were you for releasing the files? Or were you calling it a hoax? Or were you just too chicken to come out and say anything?
And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the politicians right now who are being considered the future of the GOP are either in the category of agreeing that it's a hoax, or just keeping their mouth shut because they don't have the courage and the political will to do the right thing.
And so I don't think you should trust those people later.
And the same goes for the news sources and the influencers on the internet. If, a year ago, they were for releasing the files, and now they don't even want to talk about the fact that the files are released, then you know they're part of the problem—and they're not going to be part of any solution going forward.
If you can't take up for kids who are being sex trafficked, who will you take up for?
Congressman Thomas Massie, thank you very much for talking with us today on The Reason Interview.
- Producer: Paul Alexander
- Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser
