Representative Thomas Massie may have lost his primary race, but he is far from done. The Kentucky Republican has made it clear that his final months in Congress he will be naming more people connected to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Despite the loss, Massie plans to keep pushing Epstein file disclosures
Massie recently lost his Republican primary to Ed Gallrein, President Donald Trump’s personally chosen candidate, in what became the most expensive House primary election in US history, according to Newsweek. Trump had been pushing to remove Massie from office after the congressman repeatedly broke with him on key issues, most notably by co-authoring the legislation that forced the release of the Epstein files.
But Massie will remain in Congress until his term ends in January and he appears to have no intention of going quietly. When NBC’s Meet the Press host Kristen Welker asked him directly whether he planned to name more individuals connected to Epstein on the House floor where lawmakers are legally protected from liability under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, Massie’s answer was simple. “Yes,” he told Welker, according to Newsweek.
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What Massie has already done and what he still wants
Back in February, Massie sat down with Politico Magazine and painted a picture of just how far the Epstein file push had already come. According to that interview, around 3 million files had already been released at that point, which Massie called a significant victory. “I think six months ago, nobody ever thought we would be where we are now,” he told Politico in February 2026. “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.”
Massie was the only Republican to openly question Attorney General Pam Bondi during a hearing about the Epstein files. He pointed to one redacted name that he believed looked suspicious because he said it could have suggested FBI Director Kash Patel gave false testimony, while many other names were left unredacted. “I did think it was really fishy,” Massie told Politico.
Despite that confrontation, Massie said at the time that he was not planning to pursue contempt proceedings against Bondi just yet. “I don’t think it’s necessary to proverbially pull a knife right now in this argument because we’re winning it,” he told Politico in February. “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.”
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Massie’s Epstein push creates new tension within Trump’s base
Massie’s fight over the Epstein files has exposed a growing crack within Trump’s MAGA movement, according to Newsweek. Several of Trump’s biggest allies, including former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, also broke with the president over the release of the files.
In his February 2026 Politico interview, Massie said he had deliberately tried to keep the Epstein matter bipartisan, working alongside Democratic Representative Ro Khanna. “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 DC,” he said.
As for Trump’s repeated calls for the country to simply move on from the Epstein matter, Massie was blunt. “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,” Massie told Politico.
