Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a frequent thorn in the side of President Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues on major issues, took to X on Tuesday to criticize his party's current priorities — particularly with regard to an upcoming bill that would impose stricter criminal sentencing on the government of Washington, D.C.
"Tonight, Congress will vote to lower the age to prosecute minors as adults from 16 down to 14 in DC," wrote Massie. "Let me get this straight: Congress wants to prosecute 14 yr. olds as adults, but they don’t want to prosecute adults who sexually abuse 14 year olds? Release the Epstein files."
Massie, along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), has been one of the chief co-sponsors of a bipartisan discharge petition intended to compel a vote in Congress to force the Trump administration to release case files on the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking saga.
The Epstein files case has triggered national outrage and a revolt among some MAGA supporters, as many Trump officials had promised massive revelations in their review, only to close the book on the case, claiming there was no "client list" and nothing that had been covered up about Epstein's crimes or suicide.
Republicans are privately admitting that the votes are likely there to pass the resolution on Epstein, with a number of Republicans in the House and Senate joining with Democrats, even as a majority of them remain on the defensive for Trump.
Massie, who has also broken with his party on a number of key spending bills, has started to attract efforts by Trump and his allies to mount a bid to oust him from office.