The Daily Populous Monday February 16th, 2026 night edition
Authored by independent.co.uk and submitted by theindependentonline

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Rep. Thomas Massie branded Donald Trump’s presidency the “Epstein administration” on Sunday as he laid into the president and his deputy, Attorney General Pam Bondi, for what some members of Congress have described as an effort to stonewall the release of the Epstein files.

The Republican representative from Kentucky was one of two members of Congress, along with Rep. Ro Khanna, to lead a discharge petition last year aimed at forcing the Justice Department to publish the extent of its gathered evidence and information relating to Jeffrey Epstein. The measure passed after gaining widespread bipartisan support last year, and was begrudgingly signed into law by the president.

The congressman was asked about the president’s anger towards him during an interview Sunday with ABC’s Martha Raddatz on This Week, and responded by claiming that the Trump administration was still working to protect powerful men named in the files.

"Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these people in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent, but he's not. He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration,” said Massie. “There are billionaires that are friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in D.C.”

The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

open image in gallery Thomas Massie accused Donald Trump of abetting a cover-up of the Epstein files on Sunday ( ABC - This Week )

Massie became a personal foe of the president as a result of breaking with him on various policy issues, culminating with the Epstein files vote. Trump later vowed to bankroll a primary challenge against him.

On Sunday, Massie also reacted to the testimony of Bondi last week before the House Judiciary Committee, where he and several other lawmakers attempted to press the attorney general on redactions in the files and delays in their publication

The DOJ now says it has released all of its files pertaining to the investigation, but Massie and other members of Congress have complained that their access to the unredacted versions — which can only be viewed at DOJ headquarters under surveillance — is still being restricted in some ways.

“They took down some of the most significant documents, two of them involving Virginia Giuffre’s case,” Massie said on ABC. “We want to be able to look at all these files. They can't keep those documents down after they've already produced them."

The Department of Justice remains adamant that the evidence gathered as part of the agency’s 2019 investigation into Epstein did not turn out incriminating evidence against any powerful figures save for Epstein himself and his girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who remains in a U.S. prison. The billionaire financier was found dead in his cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges, with federal authorities labeling it a suicide.

open image in gallery Victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein react as US Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Oversight of the Department of Justice" on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2026 ( AFP/Getty )

Members of Congress who have viewed the unredacted versions say the files contain references to victims as young as nine years old. They’ve criticized the agency over redactions made in the public versions of the files.

“We didn’t want to see any redactions of the names of co-conspirators, accomplices, enablers, abusers, rapists, simply to spare them potential embarrassment, political sensitivity or disgrace of some kind,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat on the Judiciary committee, said last week.

“And yet nonetheless, the Epstein […] documents that were released are filled with redactions of names and information about people who clearly are not victims and may fall into that other category.”

open image in gallery Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks with the media after viewing the unredacted version of the Jeffrey Epstein files at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 2026 ( Reuters )

Though no one else has been held criminally accountable for associations with Epstein or Maxwell, the fallout from relationships exposed in the files has already been enormous, with a global reach. In the U.K., controversy over former ambassador and Labour peer Peter Mandelson’s association with Epstein led to him resigning from the House of Lords while questions about his appointment have pressured Keir Starmer, the prime minister.

Trump, whose name appears “more than a million times” in the unredacted files according to Rep. Raskin, has not been accused of wrongdoing. But his friendship with Epstein and admission that Virginia Giuffre previously worked at Mar-a-Lago, where she met the sex trafficking pedophile Epstein, have caused massive headaches for the president.

The president has frequently called on Republican voters to drop their interest in the investigation, to little avail.

whatzgood on February 15th, 2026 at 18:14 UTC »

It's CRAZY that Qanon actually ended up being real, but the people behind the conspiracy are in Qanon's camp...

oiseaua20 on February 15th, 2026 at 17:58 UTC »

Everyone needs to calm down. Attorney General Bondi was very clear: why are we obsessing over "redacted billionaires" and "leaked victim names" when the Dow just crossed 50,000 for the first time in history?? 🫨

Jacob_dp on February 15th, 2026 at 17:47 UTC »

The more we learn the more I think that everyone he chose for his cabinet and most of the Senators that confirmed them are all implicated.