Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Monday weighed in on President Donald Trump’s move to support a House vote seeking the release of more information surrounding the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Over the weekend, Trump backed legislation spearheaded by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) that the House is set to vote on this week, which would order the Justice Department to release more of the government’s Epstein files. The president’s decision came as a surprise to some, as he previously railed against a coalition of lawmakers for prioritizing the issue.
Massie responded to Trump’s decision by suggesting the president “got tired of me winning” during an interview with Politico.
Trump initially suggested he was against Massie and Khanna’s effort in the House to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The legislation is now up for a vote this week after the two lawmakers used a discharge petition to gather the required number of signatures.
The president has argued that the Justice Department is already working as swiftly as possible to release information on the Epstein case. Democrats are using “weak Republicans” such as Massie in an effort to paint the administration in an unfavorable light, Trump has said.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” the president said last week, two days before he asked the Justice Department and FBI to expand investigations into Epstein.
“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap,” he added in a post to Truth Social. “The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price. There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
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Days later, Trump continued to rail against the Epstein “hoax” but urged the House to pass Massie’s legislation “because we have nothing to hide.”
“Nobody cared about Jeffrey Epstein when he was alive and, if the Democrats had anything, they would have released it before our Landslide Election Victory. Some ‘members’ of the Republican Party are being ‘used,’ and we can’t let that happen,” the president added in an apparent reference to Republicans such as Massie and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who have remained laser-focused on seeing the release of all the Epstein files. “Let’s start talking about the Republican Party’s Record Setting Achievements, and not fall into the Epstein ‘TRAP,’ which is actually a curse on the Democrats, not us.”