Reps. Massie, Khanna Wrongly Implicate Four Men Mentioned in Epstein Files to Get Trump
“What I saw that bothered me were the names of at least six men that had been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files.”
The Epstein files sometimes bring out the absolute worst in some folks on Capitol Hill, and this week was no exception.
On Monday, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) reviewed unredacted documents in the Epstein case at the DOJ for about two hours and came across the names of six men whose names had been redacted. They talked to reporters shortly thereafter, with Massie alleging that the six were “likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files.”
Khanna nodded in agreement with Massie’s claim, stating later that “at the very least, these six men – maybe she [DOJ Attorney General Pam Bondi] can make public. We’re happy to provide the information to them, and they should do that.”
Watch:
.@RepThomasMassie on viewing the unredacted Epstein files: "What I saw that bothered me were the names of at least six men that had been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files." pic.twitter.com/q5Tx1a6Dkc
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 9, 2026
Massie also said in the presser that “we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented.”
The DOJ did unredact the names a short time later, but Khanna took it a step further by taking to the House floor on Tuesday to read the men’s names:
The lawmakers threatened to expose the men if DOJ did not cooperate, taking advantage of the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause that under certain circumstances can shield members of Congress from litigation. DOJ ultimately complied with some of their requests, Massie announced in social media posts Tuesday morning.
Khanna, however, wasn’t satisfied to stop there.
In a House floor speech on Tuesday, Khanna named the six men, referring to them without evidence as “wealthy and powerful,” insinuating they were guilty of criminal actions because the DOJ was “hiding” their names in the Epstein files. Khanna then questioned who else the DOJ was “covering up for” in the millions of other documents, another clear insinuation of the men being guilty of crimes.
Watch:
.@RepThomasMassie and I forced last night the DOJ to disclose the identities of 6 men:
Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, Nicola Caputo, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner.
I share details of what more we learned to hold the… pic.twitter.com/5JwKwRUNIF
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) February 10, 2026
According to a report from The Guardian of all places, however, four of the six have no connection at all to Jeffrey Epstein:
After questions from the Guardian, the Department of Justice said that four of the men Khanna named have no apparent connection to Epstein whatsoever, but rather appeared in a photo lineup assembled by the southern district of New York (SDNY).
DOJ Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s office responded to the story by blasting Khanna:
“Rep Ro Khanna and Rep Thomas Massie forced the unmasking of completely random people selected years ago for an FBI lineup – men and women. These individuals have NOTHING to do with Epstein or Maxwell,” the spokesperson told the Guardian.
Blanche also wrote on X that “Of those included in the lineup list were 4 of the 6 men that Mr. Massie and Mr. Khanna referenced repeatedly and were only included in that one document out of all the files.”
He went on to note that, “The other two men – Les Wexner and Sultan bin Sulayem- were unredacted in the one document, and are referenced in the files nearly two hundred times and over 4,700 times respectively.”
So Ro Khana and Thomas Massie implied that 4 redacted names in the Epstein files were co-conspirators and the DoJ was covering for them.
The DoJ unmasked the names and it turned out they were random guys involved in a lineup with no connection to Epstein. pic.twitter.com/T3QpueaYyL
— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 13, 2026
Astonishingly, Khanna tried to blame the DOJ for his false claims about the four men’s wealth and power as well as his insinuations about their guilt, tweeting after The Guardian‘s report came out that “I wish DOJ had provided that explanation earlier instead of redacting then unredacting their names.”
Ro Khanna slanders innocent people for absolutely no reason.
Trump warned this would happen. He was right. https://t.co/1F3h84YprD pic.twitter.com/6DqN3GWdHr
— Apple Lamps (@lamps_apple) February 13, 2026
Massie’s attempt to weasel out of his “implicated” and “incriminated” statements was met with exactly the type of response it deserved:
Your exact words three days ago were “they might be implicated.” Even in this interview, you are heavily insinuating there was a cover up and their names shouldn’t have been redacted.
So what exactly did you want to happen when you said that? https://t.co/QdeLnSx8SV
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) February 13, 2026
“What exactly?” indeed.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
Those 2 are on TV nearly every single day
Horrible people, disgusting
This is like the Witch burnings of yesteryear.. just a freaking bloodlust
MTG hangs around Massie all the time . She turned out to be a real piece, which I didn’t see coming. But crazy does crazy,
I’m hoping we can get rid of Massie next election.
I hope these innocent men can sue
This is like the Witch burnings of yesteryear.. just a freaking bloodlust
Or, as Lawdog points out, like the “Satanic Panic” of the late 80s and 90s. Remember daycares shut down because little kids were “witnesses” of satanic ritual pedophilia?
Yes, right here in Austin , Tx
It was on the news 24/7
Lots of lives ruined. Owners of the Daycare spent 10 years in prison…
How they got millions
And indeed I’ve come across people bizarrely claiming that the Epstein files somehow prove “PIzzagate” was real, and going on from there. Someone just forwarded me a really weird video claiming that Epstein and all these Pizzagate people are Frankists, a cult that died out 200 years ago, along with some completely counterfactual claims about the Kabalah.
I don’t know that it proves Pizzagate. But, the interesting thing was Pizzagate was dismissed as an insane conspiracy theory. Our elites couldn’t possibly be abusing children on such a scale, in fact ordering them up like pizza.
Only…they were. They just had to go to Epstein Island. Now, the specific allegations of what happened are different and some of the Pizzagate specifics do sound pretty nuts, but the general ideas of both aren’t that dissimilar. And at this point I really don’t put anything past the rich and powerful crowd and wouldn’t be surprised if something very similar to Pizzagate was happening.
Pizzagate was and remains an insane conspiracy theory.
There’s still no evidence that Epstein had children on his island; young teenagers yes, but not children.
And there’s also still no evidence that anyone but he and Maxwell were ever involved with those teenagers. The ideas that he was running a prostitution service and/or a blackmail operation are conspiracy theories with no evidence to back them up.
Also like the Metoo movement.
They can always sue.
Whether they can WIN is another question entirely.
No, they can’t sue. They can file but it will be rejected immediately without any consideration, because of congressional immunity.
If they said this on the floor of the house, they can’t sue. Anything they say on the floor of the house is protected.
Congressional immunity is not restricted to things said on the floor. That’s the UK Parliament and its progeny. US congressmen and their staff members have immunity for anything said, anywhere, in the course of their legitimate congressional work.
You keep saying that. Yet I keep hearing congressmen themselves discuss their care to say such things “on the floor where I will be protected” instead of “anywhere I damn well please.”
Some of them may not understand it either. But the courts have been clear that the location is not what matters. The best proof of that is that staffers have the same immunity, and obviously they can’t speak on the floor. What matters is whether the speech is part of the legislative process. So it applies equally in committees, and in communication with other congressmen and their staffers. Communicating with the public, though, is not usually part of the legislative process, because the public don’t vote on legislation. But if the speaker (whether a Congressman or a staffer) was calling on the public to lobby their congressmen on how to vote, then it probably would be protected.
The speech and debate clause shelters them from suit. This probably contributes to their sloppiness in these matters. If they thought for a moment they could be sued for a bazillion dollars, they would have done their own due diligence and discovered for themselves why those men were named in the files.
Khanna put their names it in a tweet. That is beyond the speech and debate rule.
Probably, but not necessarily. The immunity covers all “legislative acts”, so if he can make out a case that the tweet was somehow part of the legislative process then he’s immune.
However, supporting your claim that tweets are not covered, is Hutchinson v Proxmire: “Valuable and desirable as it may be in broad terms, the transmittal of such information by individual Members in order to inform the public and other Members is not a part of the legislative function or the deliberations that make up the legislative process. As a result, transmittal of such information by press releases and newsletters is not protected by the Speech or Debate Clause.”
What a pathetic joke LI and its comment section has turned into. You’ve already ignored Bondi’s “The DOW’s over 50k!!” meltdown, and the elaborate lies that Commerce Secretary (and Israel fan) Lutnick told to hide his extensive involvement with Epstein. Now, you ignore the DOJ’s illegal redaction of Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem’s name.
Do any of you pedo-protecting Trump groupies here even know who that is?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026/02/11/dubai-billionaire-epstein-video-torture/
I’m sorry. I should care what you have to say why?
I would like to cordially invite you to eat the corn out of my sh*t. Now, go fu*k your mother and shut the fu*k up.
Unnecessary
🤣🤣🤣
You’re not taking it well that so far it’s just Democrats implicated by Epstein are ya sweetie 🤣🤣
Good to see you are triggered, all the way from the skewed morality you represent, far worse than most anything you wet your pants over.
So is your name in the documents?
Stop acting righteous and like you care about catching pedos. If you were, any time one of you Leftists came out and said, “Protect Trans Kids!” or “Support LGBT youth!” or “banning LGBT books in libraries!” You would report these sickos as woodchipper clients!
I’m not versed on the subject to reply in any intelligent way. But I downvoted you, as I don’t believe you are either.
LOL. Moonmouth rears his ugly face to once more lecture the “comment section.”
Pro tip, douchebag. If you don’t like it here you can simply leave.
But you won’t, because you’re a douchebag.
Everyone here as heard that ad nauseum from the MSM and others. Why would we need to read about it here? Many of us here already don’t care for Bondi. I hope she is eventually replaced – by someone more competent who behaves like a shark in a feeding frenzy.
What was illegal about it?
The Sultan — a powerful, wealthy man engaged in horrific criminal conduct — was precisely the sort of person whose name the law clearly intended to leave unredacted.
But keep on splitting trying to split those legal hairs, Milhouse. The DOW has dropped below 50k, and the pedos you’re protecting are getting a little worried.
No one here is protecting pedos, asshole.
You seem to be hung up on pedos. Are you one?
Forget “clearly intended”. Which clause of which law says they couldn’t redact his name.
“Forget ‘clearly intended'” No. the intent matters. But if you want to try to split legal hairs to justify DOJ’s cover-up of horrific crimes being committed by a powerful, wealthy man, be my guest.
“Intent” makes no difference to the law. The law can’t depend on what’s in someone’s head. Not only can’t we know what all the legislators who voted for a measure intended, but even if we could know, even if we have all of their affidavits and they all intended the same thing, that intent cannot be part of the law. The law is what it says, and nothing but what it says. Its public text. That’s the only thing the public have to go on, and they must be on notice about what they must and must not do.
That’s why constitutional originalists do not focus on what the drafters had in their minds, but what a reasonable reader in 1789 would have had in his.
But tell me more about how Masshole is so ‘principled’.
They should sue Massie and Khanna.
It’s long past time that the so-called ‘speech and debate’ clause was re-evaluated.
They smeared 4 utterly innocent people for cheap political points. They made SPECIFIC claims about them, knowing that it was BS. These people were NOT public figures of any stripe.
It’s long past time they brought the hammer down, politicians can NOT simply smear average people with no consequences in any forum they want.
The clause exists exactly for the purpose of allowing Congress critters to say what they want to say without fear of being sued so the people can hear from them what it is they want to say. The solution to the problem is to elect better people to Congress, not to put them in fear of saying something out of turn.
Huh? It can’t be “reevaluated”, any more than the rest of the constitution.
Of course it can. It can be defined and limited through Supreme Court decisions. Just like the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, etc…
Those can’t be “reevaluated” either. They mean what they mean, and the courts’ duty is to figure out what that is, not to alter it to suit their own preferences, or those of the public.
And yet that’s exactly what they do…
There’s gonna be all sorts of names that had ZERO to do with personally trafficking or sexually abusing minor children. Congress passed and the President signed a bill into law that requires the DoJ to make public everything in the Epstein/Maxwell info/file EXCEPT the names/images of the victims. Whether we think that requirement was a good or bad idea is moot. It is a statutory requirement. Congressmen examining the non public info and calling out some examples where the DoJ didn’t follow the requirements doesn’t seem controversial.
IMO every name (other than the victims) should be put out with some basic context as to what their involvement with Epstein/Maxwell was and VERY importantly WHEN. If folks choose to ‘pal around’ with Epstein AFTER his guilty plea/conviction of procurement of a child for prostitution in ’07 ….those folks have zero credibility for ‘I didn’t know he did those kind of things’, they ignored the publicly available facts and decided a financial relationship with Epstein or access to his circle of wealthy, power brokers was more important than his depravity.
“Congressmen examining the non public info and calling out some examples where the DoJ didn’t follow the requirements doesn’t seem controversial.”
It is controversial if the individual had no Epstein involvement. People will only remember they were mentioned and not the context in which they were mentioned.
DoJ was supposed to be releasing ALL the data to include everyone’s names with the exception of ID and images of victims. Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass the legislation requiring it and the President signed it into law. It is hardly controversial for members of Congress to exercise oversight and demand the laws it passed be followed.
IMO the DoJ should have created tranches of names by category/involvement:
1. Pizza delivery guy, doorman and so on who may be listed but had zero real contact.
2. Folks who ‘pal around’ with Epstein PRIOR to ’07 guilty plea/conviction and cut ties afterwards.
3. Folks who continued to associate or began their association with Epstein AFTER his guilty plea/conviction.
4. Co conspirators
That would have helped to highlight the closer contacts while mitigating the reputation damage to those who had no real association and highlighting those like Trump who broke off any association with Epstein.
I get what you’re saying chief but this Epstein thing was a rabbit hole that no one was ever going to solve or satisfy anyone’s bloodlust.
It definitely can be said that this is now a modern day witch trial.
To let you know my brother in laws name appears in the file. (Just once)
He’s a forensic accountant and someone mentioned him in an email.
This Pandora’s box probably should’ve remained shut.
Kool! is the file searchable?
All I know is I typed his name in and voila
Like it or not the decision was made by Congress practically unanimously and Trump signed the legislation requiring the release into law.
See my response to ztakddot above for how I would have suggested they mitigate potential harm to folks mentioned but who were tangential at worst.
Yeah, nobody is gonna convince me Chris Tucker is a pedo. Coupla other names on the list as well.
I am sick and tired of hearing about the Epstein files. This idea that if you can’t convict someone in a court of law let’s hang them in the court of public opinion is just disgusting.
Khanna is a typical Democrat, but Massie is a huge disappointment.
You can only be disappointed if you were dumb enough to believe anything he said.
TDS makes people do stupid stuff.
Trump called it, and I didn’t believe it when he did. Massie is a piece of crap.
ANY ‘Republican’ who falls in with a democrat, for whatever reason, is a naive sack of crap. Khanna is an idiot, but I guarantee the rest of the democrats planned this out to give them cover. “A Republican did it too!”
I learned years ago to never jump in bed with a democrat.
Everything they say and do is a lie or for personal gain.
One thing is pellucidly clear – the entire Epstein file episode has been used to attack Trump, no matter what he did or what he didn’t do, no matter how his DOJ redacted the documents, no matter who is named (no matter the circumstances) and who is not named in the files.
For instance, before he released the files, Trump was concealing his own involvement and those of his friends. After the release of the files the redaction isn’t perfect (I’ve redacted police files personally, it’s not a precise science) and the files’ release was meant to distract from (insert something here, like “ICE’s murders” or “the bad economy”). Do this – Trump bad. Do that – Trump bad. Do nothing – Trump bad. This is the game and it’s played with literally every political issue.
It’s clear that this Epstein stuff is to distract the congress critters from actually having to do any work and to wait out the Trump admin.
I keep asking myself how these people would be prosecuted considering a lot of these woman or young girls at the time signed agreements to settle out of court or whatever.
Would the DOJ just prosecute people like those who prosecuted Bill Cosby.
This all seems to be a big show for the masses to fight with each other and throw accusations at everyone.
Look, all I want at the moment is for illegals to be kicked out, manufacturing jobs to come back, make my energy costs low, and get able bodied Americans back to work instead of giving them everything.
This is how so many democrats spend their time in Congress…not coming up with any sane ways to help America and Americans; no, they spend their time in constant pursuit of somehow…some way…..to ‘get’ Trump. Democrats know Trump endangers their standards…stealing elections, sucking on the taxpayer teat and enriching themselves and their families through corrupt practices. This is why they desperately tried to keep him from running for president, and when that didn’t work, have tried to kill him. The democrat has become the party of radical, mentally ill, virtue signaling hacks, who are dead set on ‘redoing’ America into the global, socialist utopia they all dream of.
I still don’t understand why anyone believes these files are complete or accurate after so many years in the hands of multiple DOJs. Anything could have been added or removed. Who’s going to be able to legitimately dispute their authenticity? Epstein would probably be about the only one and he’s dead.