President Donald Trump has been trying to outrun one political firestorm after another, juggling a war with Iran, backlash from his own party and a growing mountain of scrutiny tied to the Epstein files.
But as more than three million pages of documents have finally begun spilling into public view, another problem for the president is suddenly coming into focus: just how far his own team allegedly went behind the scenes to stop the files from being released in the first place.
While Trump and his allies hoped the massive document dump might finally put the scandal to rest, a scathing new report suggests the opposite — revealing what Rep. Thomas Massie says was a frantic effort by the White House and Trump’s orbit to sabotage his push to force the files into the open.
In a report published by The Atlantic, the extent of the scheme to block Massie along with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California from pushing the Epstein Files Transparency Act blows out into the open.
Massie described it is as a “360-pressure campaign” while lawmakers told the magazine the effort was “unprecedented in its intensity and scope.”
Just two weeks before the House was set to vote on the measure, key staff members were “suddenly offered more prestigious jobs in the Trump administration or more lucrative jobs in the private sector.”
One of Massie’s employees received an offer that would have doubled his salary.
“Did it ever occur to you that they might be offering you this job to basically make me less effective?” Massie remembered asking his employee. Massie said the staffer turned down the job and commented, “That’s what my mom said.”
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Despite the bully tactics, no one from Massie’s team accepted the offers and the office continued pushing ahead with drafting the legislation.
And the pressure campaign didn’t stop with Massie. Trump’s allies also zeroed in on Republican women in Congress who voiced support for the bill — including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Anticipating the blowback, Massie created a group text with the lawmakers and dubbed it “Bravehearts.”
Angry MSN readers responded to the story, blasting Trump and his administration for their underhanded tactics.
“Just wow,” wrote one Threads user reacting to the report.
Other readers were far less restrained.
Reader George Boyle noted, “Nothing is beneath Trump. He is the bottom of the human race.”
Another agreed, “Most corrupt man in history, much less President.”
“Totally something an innocent man would do,” another mocked.
The revelations landed as the Justice Department has already released millions of pages of Epstein-related documents, including a massive dump of roughly three million pages in late January. But many of those records remain heavily redacted.
Oddly enough, many Epstein survivors’ names were not redacted, while numerous alleged perpetrators’ names were.
The documents released so far mention Trump’s name more than 4,000 times. Trump was closely associated with Epstein throughout the 1990s and early 2000s before the president has said he cut ties with the convicted sex trafficker in 2005.
Even as the report peeled back new details about the alleged power moves, Massie has shown little sign of backing down.
He lit the fuse again with a blunt one-sentence PSA on social media aimed squarely at Trump without naming him.
The message was short, brutal and impossible to misinterpret: “PSA: Bombing a country on the other side of the globe won’t make the Epstein files go away, any more than the Dow going above 50,000 will.”
Massie’s post quickly went viral with almost 5 million views, 283,000 likes, and 49,000 reposts.
MSN readers were blunt in their assessment of Massie’s claims about Trump and starting a war with Iran over the files.
“Isn’t it painfully obvious that whenever the Epstein file investigation gets closer to Trump that he creates a diversion? Venezuela, killings of Americans by his ICE squad, Greenland, Iran, WWIII? At what price will he not have others pay to protect his own skin?” DandJ S remarked.
Reader Felix Wells added, “Everything is about deflection. Either away from the Epstein Files, or to keep the populace occupied as he slowly dismantles the workings of the government.”
Massie’s feud with the White House has also spilled into the debate over the escalating conflict with Iran.
By a vote of 219-212, the House on Thursday rejected a war powers resolution on Iran that Massie had co-sponsored.
During hours of debate the day before, the Kentucky Republican argued that Congress — not the president alone — should decide whether the United States enters another war.
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“If American lives are to be risked and American blood is to be shed, that decision must be debated and voted on by the representatives of the American people,” Massie said Wednesday.
“And that debate is meant to be arduous. And that vote is meant to be hard.”
Massie also suggested some of his colleagues were eager to avoid taking a public position on the issue.
“I have a theory,” he said. “I think my colleagues don’t want to go on record because we have a terrible track record of meddling in the Middle East.”
While the measure ultimately failed, Massie’s message to the president was unmistakable: the Epstein fight, and the pressure campaign surrounding it, is not going away anytime soon.
