GOP Lawmaker Details Threats Against Him Amid Trump White House ‘Pressure Campaign’

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) detailed threats against him on Wednesday after saying House Republicans are facing an “immense pressure campaign” from the White House to not join him in forcing a vote to release the publicly unread Jeffrey Epstein files.

“What do those threats look like? What kind of pressure campaign are we talking about here?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked after Massie helped organize a gathering of Epstein victims at the Capitol earlier.

“Well, I’m feeling it myself in my own district. There’s been $2.5 million of ads run against me by three billionaires who are mega donors to the Republican Party, and one of them is actually, I’m not going to say on Epstein’s list, but he’s in Epstein’s black book. So I’ve taken the brunt of that myself. I think what’s being run against me is a threat to other Republicans to try to keep them from doing what I’m doing,” he replied.

“And are you worried that it’s going to be successful here?” Collins followed.

“Well, you know, I’ve opposed the president before, and he said I should be thrown out of the GOP,” Massie replied. “And in that race, I got 81% of the vote. So in some sense, I have the Trump antibodies, but I’m definitely going to get a booster shot here.”

The Trump administration acknowledged Wednesday that aiding Massie “would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.” Massie wrote on X that the president and his circle are “threatening anyone who helps bring true transparency and justice for the survivors.”

He said Trump is trying to protect powerful people who might be named in the files. The documents chronicle the investigations of the late Epstein, a former Trump pal and heavily connected sex offender who died in prison in 2019. Trump promised the files would be released, then suddenly pulled an about-face earlier in the summer. On Wednesday, he called them a “Democrat hoax.”

Some files were released this week, but they were mostly documents that had already been viewed.

Massie drew Trump’s ire when he pushed back against the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” in addition to questioning his reversal on the Epstein files.

A report by Politico on July 31 detailed $2 million raised by a super PAC of Trump allies called MAGA KY. Anti-Massie ads backed by the group began appearing in late June, as previously reported by HuffPost.