Two Kentucky Republicans are playing conflicting roles in a drama that threatens to divide President Donald Trump’s political base.
U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie and James Comer are central players in the controversy over releasing investigative files in the case of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Massie, who had already gained Trump’s ire, is leading a crusade to force a House vote on the full release of the Epstein documents by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
House Republican leaders oppose Massie’s move and are hoping an investigation by Comer’s committee will satisfy Republican demands for more transparency on the Epstein investigation and prosecution.
Epstein’s death in federal custody in 2019 was ruled a suicide, although many Trump supporters have speculated that he was murdered to keep him from revealing embarrassing information about prominent people. Trump fueled speculation about Epstein’s death during his 2020 campaign. In 2024, Trump said he would declassify the Epstein records if returned to the presidency.
Massie appeared Wednesday with accusers of Epstein and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., in a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol.
“There are real victims to this criminal enterprise, and the perpetrators are being protected because they’re rich and powerful and political donors to the establishment here in Washington, D.C. So today, we’re standing with these survivors,” Massie said at the outdoors press conference.
Massie has filed a discharge petition that needs 218 signatures, or half the House, to force a vote on a records release that the Trump administration has resisted. If all Democrats sign the petition, it would need six Republicans to succeed. Only four Republicans, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, had signed by Wednesday afternoon, two short. Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey was the only other Kentuckian who had signed.
On Wednesday, Trump said calls for the full release of Epstein files are “a Democrat hoax that never ends.” The president has previously vowed to recruit a Republican opponent for Massie in next year’s primary election. The two clashed this summer over Trump’s bombing of Iran and Massie’s vote against the GOP megabill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
House Republican leaders are hoping to dissuade congressional Republicans from signing Massie’s discharge petition, instead supporting an investigation by the House Oversight committee, led by Kentucky Republican Comer.
Comer’s committee on Tuesday released more than 30,000 pages of records from the investigation of Epstein, although the top Democrat on the committee said most of the information in the records had already become public.
The Oversight Committee also heard what Comer called “heartbreaking” stories from the survivors of Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted and is in prison. He is pressing for a House resolution that directs the Oversight Committee to continue its investigation.
“The Committee is working at an unprecedented pace and doing the work as it is supposed to be done,” Comer told the House Rules Committee. “What we heard today is that these survivors support these efforts and support transparency and accountability — goals we all share. This resolution furthers those goals. It supports our work. It supports the release of documents. And most importantly, it achieves what the survivors want. There is no question that Epstein and Maxwell were terrible criminals.”
Massie said he appreciated Comer’s efforts, but said he still had concerns about redaction of information within the documents and that some documents were already publicly available.
“They may find some information, but they’re allowing the DOJ to curate all of the information that the DOJ is giving them,” Massie said outside the Capitol.
Massie told reporters Wednesday that Speaker Johnson urged colleagues not to support the Kentucky Republican’s discharge petition and instead vote for a procedural rule to support the Oversight Committee’s investigation. A committee investigation, however, does not require a floor vote to proceed.
“My message to my colleagues was, ‘Don’t set yourself up.’ Yes, the speaker’s resolution will give you temporary political cover, but there are millions of people watching this,” Massie said.
At least one GOP candidate vying to replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell is standing with Trump.
Nate Morris, a Lexington businessman who is a staunch opponent of McConnell, said after a Tuesday night town hall that Republicans in Washington “don’t need distractions.”
“We’ve got a finite amount of time. We don’t need distractions. We don’t need people deviating from the president’s agenda,” Morris said. “We’ve got a once in a generation opportunity when we’ve got the Congress, we’ve got the executive office. We’ve got to move quickly to continue the push for the America First agenda, and we don’t need any distractions.”
A pro-Trump super PAC has been running anti-Massie ads in Kentucky in keeping with Trump’s vow to unseat the incumbent.
One rumored candidate for the president is state Sen. Aaron Reed, a Shelbyville Republican elected to the state legislature last year. Ahead of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Country Ham Breakfast in August, Reed told reporters that he is “happy being a senator right now” and is preparing for the 2026 legislative session.
“It’s a great honor to be a senator, and it’s also an honor to be considered, by some, to possibly be a congressman,” Reed said when asked about the rumors. “That wasn’t my focus. It’s not my focus today, but if God’s will is to do that, it’s kind of hard to fight that.”