Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican House representative whose district encompasses Northern Kentucky, spoke before the Kenton County Mayors Group Saturday morning, updating them about various things going on at the federal level.
Massie discussed several topics, including his work on various congressional committees, the government shut down and perhaps most notably his federal discharge petition to release U.S. Department of Justice documents related to the late sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein.
“These files have never been released, and the people have never been investigated, and they’ve obviously never been convicted,” Massie said.
Massie introduced a discharge petition in July to move the release of the files directly to a vote on the House floor, a maneuver that requires 218 signatures from representatives. Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California co-sponsored the resolution to release the files. All House Democrats and four House Republicans, including Massie himself, provided signatures. The petition garnered its final necessary signature earlier this week after Rep. Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona who was elected in a special election in September, was sworn into office after the close of the federal shutdown.
“I hope that just because you’re a billionaire or you know somebody in politics, it shouldn’t make you immune from laws, particularly laws on sex trafficking 14-year-olds, which is what we have right now,” Massie said.
The vote on the petition will occur on Tuesday, but the files won’t be released immediately if it passes. It will still need to garner a vote from the Senate and a signature from the president. Congress can override a presidential veto if it passes a measure a second time with a two-thirds majority vote in favor.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered a federal prosecutor on Friday to open an investigation into Democrats allegedly associated with Epstein, as well as JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services for Epstein. This could have the effect of slowing the release of some of the files, at least the ones related to the investigation announced this week, as documents involved in an active investigation can’t be released while the investigation is ongoing.
When asked about this, Massie admitted he had concerns about it but said, “I don’t think it’s going to protect everybody.”
“I think it is a move to block the release of the files,” Massie said. “I am concerned about that. There will be people, though–there will be some billionaires who are not protected by that.”
Massie also fielded questions from the attendees on Saturday. Crescent Springs City Council Member Jeannine Bell Smith asked Massie about attack ads against him she’d seen recently.
Massie chalked the ads up to “three billionaires [who] are upset that I’m not voting for foreign aid.”
Kenton County Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Steve Hensley asked about confusion with federal benefit payouts. He described the situation of someone he knew, whom he did not name, who shared a name with a convicted criminal. As a result, this person’s benefits had been frozen because the federal records had gotten their wires crossed.
Massie encouraged Hensley to connect the person with one of his staff.