Massie Just Read the List the Justice Department Was Supposed to Write
Fourteen names on the House floor, a discharge petition open as of today, and one question for your representative.
On July 17 I read the amendment language at the bottom of H.R. 9694 so you didn’t have to. The Epstein Files Transparency Act II is not a lawsuit bill with a transparency label. It deletes the national-security classification exemption from the Epstein files law, requires every black bar to carry its own signed justification, makes a false or misleading justification a federal crime with the Attorney General and the FBI Director named in the statute, and hands the complete unredacted file to all fifty state attorneys general, every member of Congress, and every survivor. The House had seven legislative days to take it up.
It didn’t. Tonight Rep. Thomas Massie was recognized for one minute on the floor and used it to do two things.
He opened the discharge petition. Beginning today, any member can sign. At 218 signatures the Speaker can no longer keep the bill off the floor.
And he read names.
Three things have changed since July. The Acting Attorney General who told the Senate “mistakes were made” is no longer the defendant-in-waiting; the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche 50–49 on August 8, and the name in the bill’s criminal penalties is now the name on the door. The Department’s count still does not reconcile — its own July court filing said 3.5 million pages released and 2.5 million withheld, the sponsors say three million, and Massie from the floor tonight: “the government continues to withhold over three million files” — because custody, not counting, is the problem, and custody is what the bill transfers. And the Department has now put a legal name on part of what it keeps. In a joint interview with Ro Khanna on CNN tonight, Massie said Blanche has told them in informal memos that “another entire category” is being withheld under the deliberative process privilege: the conversations among DOJ officials about the materials — the decisions on whom to investigate and whom not to charge that the original act ordered released. The July piece described how EFTA II bars that privilege by name. Khanna’s summary tonight: the first law covered it; the second says it “explicitly.”
Massie’s summary of the bill from the floor was seven words: “bring the fight to the state courts.” Readers of the July piece know which state. New Mexico’s Attorney General reopened the Zorro Ranch case in February, counted roughly 13,000 references to the ranch in the federal files, most of them blacked out, and spent the spring being told the records were tied up in protective orders. Massie said tonight that New Mexico’s attorney general “hasn’t got any cooperation from the U.S. attorney general, which is almost unprecedented,” and that the first act simply never anticipated a Justice Department refusing a state prosecutor its files. A state prosecution is the one door Washington cannot lock. EFTA II puts the key in Santa Fe.
Then the names — and here the floor speech and the statute meet. Section 3 of the original act requires the Attorney General, within fifteen days of completion, to deliver Congress “a list of all government officials and politically exposed persons named or referenced in the released materials, with no redactions permitted.” A release that is never complete is a list that is never due. Tonight, under the Speech or Debate Clause, Massie read fourteen entries of it into the record himself:
“We want perpetrators of these crimes to be investigated and prosecuted.”
Jes Staley.
Leon Black.
Les Wexner.
David Copperfield.
Lapo Elkann.
Tom Pritzker.
Glenn Dubin. Frédéric
Fekkai.
Eduardo Teodorani-Fabbri.
Jean-Luc Brunel — “conveniently dead by suicide in prison.”
Daniel Siad — “recently discovered dead in Paris.”
Ramsey Elkholy.
Prince Andrew — “who committed sex crimes in the United States, too.”
And Lesley Groff — “not a victim,” in Massie’s words, but a woman “who conspired with Epstein to traffic other women.”
“Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice.”
The standard this series holds itself to applies to that list. None of the fourteen has been criminally charged in the United States in connection with Epstein; those who have spoken publicly have denied wrongdoing. A name read on the House floor is not a finding. It is a demand that findings be made — and the unredacted files are the only place they can be. Khanna said tonight where, specifically: the survivors’ own statements to FBI agents — the 302s — which he said were scrubbed by the FBI and never transmitted in unredacted form for release. “That is where the names are.” Several of tonight’s names already run through the Bates-numbered record this series is built on: Lesley Groff’s emails are the spine of the February 27, 2013 reconstruction published here Saturday, and the British state’s paper trail around Prince Andrew is documented here. The bill’s definition of the “criminal network” — everyone who “funded, concealed, profited from, obstructed investigation of, or otherwise enabled” the abuse — was written for the people who never appeared on a flight log. Tonight’s list is a first draft of who that means.
Now the arithmetic, in Massie’s words tonight: “the math is the same this time as it was a year ago.” Every Democrat. Two vacant Democratic seats, which he expects filled this week “unless Speaker Johnson does something like he did last time and drags out swearing people in for two months.” Then Massie, plus three more Republicans. “We do not have Marjorie Taylor Greene anymore.” What he has instead is the record of the last vote — 427 to 1 in the House, unanimous in the Senate — which is why he thinks signing “shouldn’t be as toxic this time.” He told the Washington Times today he expects to reach 218 before the midterms or in the lame duck. He leaves Congress in January. The number is not automatic, and the pressure has to be. The members who went home when the record stopped pointing at the other party are the ones to call first.
Same tool. Next step.
Call your representative. Ask one question. Have you signed?
If yes, thank them. If no, ask why, and ask when.
Thank you, Thomas Massie.
Every page stamped EFTA that the public has read exists because 218 members signed their names last time. The thirty-part investigation built on those pages continues. In this record, the architecture of concealment is the confession — and tonight fourteen names of it went into the Congressional Record.
You can track the signatures on the discharge petition below in real time. https://clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2026083127?Page=3
Sources:
Rep. Massie, House floor remarks, Aug. 31, 2026, video as posted by the sponsor:
(Congressional Record text pending)
[OUTLET], Aug. 31, 2026, joint interview with Reps. Massie and Khanna: [URL]
H.R. 9694, Epstein Files Transparency Act II, introduced text: https://massie.house.gov/UploadedFiles/EFTA_II.pdf
Epstein Files Transparency Act, Public Law 119–38, enrolled text: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ38/html/PLAW-119publ38.htm
Sponsors’ press release, July 15, 2026: https://www.merkley.senate.gov/massie-khanna-leger-fernandez-merkley-lujan-introduce-the-epstein-files-transparency-act-ii/
The Washington Times, Aug. 31, 2026 (petition launch; Massie interview): https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/aug/31/thomas-massie-launches-discharge-petition-bill-enforce-release/
Raw Story, Aug. 31, 2026 (floor speech): https://www.rawstory.com/thomas-massie-epstein-files/
U.S. Senate Roll Call Vote 230, Aug. 8, 2026 (Blanche confirmation, 50–49): https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1192/vote_119_2_00230.htm
The Spokesman-Review, July 2, 2026 (DOJ filing; 3.5M/2.5M figures): https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2026/jul/02/doj-defends-decision-to-withhold-millions-of-epste/
France 24, July 22, 2026 (Siad death): https://www.france24.com/en/france/20260722-french-modelling-scout-linked-to-us-sex-offender-epstein-found-dead-outside-paris
Why didn't Massie and Khanna do this when Biden was president? How "noble" of them insisting on it now. Sarc. I am in complete agreement that many need to be brought to justice. My question again is "Why wasn't this done years ago?" These 2 are part of tge problem too. Sick of this political theater.
OK, but I can't stand Khanna, and if that's the company Massie keeps, then YIKES.