Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., declared a political and oversight victory Monday after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche unredacted a key name in the latest release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files, a move Massie said validated his long-standing concerns about excessive secrecy and misleading testimony from federal officials.
Massie spoke to reporters after reviewing the unredacted materials made available to members of Congress at the Justice Department. He said what stood out most was not what had been revealed, but what had been hidden.
“What I saw that bothered me were the names of at least six men that have been redacted that are likely incriminated by their inclusion in these files,” Massie told reporters. He added that uncovering those redactions required significant effort. “So that’s the first thing that I saw. It took some digging to find them.”
Later Monday evening, Massie took his concerns directly to the public, posting images from the redacted documents on social media. In one post, he pointed out that several of the obscured names belonged to men born before 1970, raising questions about why they were still shielded.
“Four of the 18 redacted names on this document are men born before 1970,” Massie wrote. “DOJ needs to explain why they are redacted unless they were just randoms in a line-up.”
In a follow-up post, Massie highlighted another redaction, writing, “This is a well known retired CEO. DOJ should unredact this. Why did they redact it?”
That post drew a direct response from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said the document contained multiple victim names. Blanche confirmed that the Justice Department had unredacted the name of Les Wexner, the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, but argued that the department was not concealing anything.
“We have just unredacted Les Wexner’s name from this document, but his name already appears in the files thousands of times,” Blanche wrote. “DOJ is hiding nothing.”
Massie was not satisfied with that explanation. In a lengthy thread, he accused the Justice Department of exceeding its legal authority by redacting the names of Epstein’s associates when the statute governing the file release only required the protection of victims’ identities.
“In response to my posts on X today,” Massie wrote, “DOJ 1) unredacted an FBI file that LABELS two individuals as co-conspirators, 2) unredacted a file that lists several men who might be implicated, 3) tacitly admitted that Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem was the sender of the torture video.”
Massie argued that these disclosures directly contradict testimony given to Congress. He accused FBI Director Kash Patel of misleading lawmakers when Patel testified that the FBI did not believe Epstein had suspected accomplices.
“This is significant because Kash Patel testified to Congress that FBI had no evidence of other sex traffickers,” Massie wrote. He pointed to an FBI document from 2019 that listed Wexner as a co-conspirator in child sex trafficking, noting that the document remained redacted until Monday night.
Massie continued by criticizing the Justice Department’s justification for broad redactions.
“Here DOJ acts as if they were justified in redacting the men’s names simply because the document contains victims names,” he wrote. “Tonight they learned you can redact victim names while still publishing the other names, per our law.”
He also said his review led to the identification of the individual who sent a torture video to Epstein, information he said had previously been unknown.
“Our law requires VICTIM’s information to be redacted, not information of men who sent Epstein torture porn,” Massie wrote.
The Kentucky Republican framed the episode as proof that persistent congressional oversight can force transparency, even when federal agencies resist it.
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