{"id":417,"date":"2026-05-25T14:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=417"},"modified":"2026-05-25T14:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T14:11:24","slug":"thomas-massies-defeat-brings-the-odious-epstein-era-to-a-humiliating-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Massie’s defeat brings the odious Epstein Era to a humiliating end"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Rep. Thomas Massie\u2019s defeat at the hands of a Republican primary challenger backed by President Trump marked the merciful end of the wretched Epstein Era.<\/p>\n

Read more Ex-Vietnam POW warns: Americans \u2018cannot appreciate what we have until you lose it\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The Kentucky congressman\u2019s involuntary retirement represents not just a notch in the belt of the MAGA political machine ahead of November\u2019s high-stakes midterm elections, but a massive step out of the fever swamp for the country as a whole.<\/p>\n

By giving the conspiracy theorists bipartisan cover, Massie bears much responsibility for keeping their circus on the road.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Epstein was an execrable man who used his money, fame and power to commit terrible crimes.<\/p>\n

But in the years since his death, scores of similarly execrable actors have committed terrible sins of their own under the guise of pursuing justice for Epstein victims.<\/p>\n

Chief among them was Massie, the gadfly who, alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), championed the Epstein Files Transparency Act.<\/p>\n

A lot of good that\u2019s done: Their grandstanding and circumvention of a legal process designed to protect innocents resulted in the amplification of smears against countless people, from Trump to the four private citizens falsely accused of wrongdoing after Massie and Khanna reviewed unredacted Justice Department files.<\/p>\n

Khanna mourned his partner-in-opportunism\u2019s loss on Tuesday, declaring that Massie sacrificed his career for having \u201cthe guts to take on the Epstein class.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s a euphemism for \u201cthe temerity to use others\u2019 pain and righteous outrage into a blunt, poorly wielded political weapon,\u201d then right on, Ro.<\/p>\n

The Epstein drama took on new life last year as Trump began his second term.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s reflexive enemies in both parties saw his past relationship with Epstein \u2014 which ended sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s \u2014 as an chance to finally bring together the ever-closing walls around him.<\/p>\n

But there was never any \u201cthere\u201d there, so they had to settle for innuendo, dirty jokes and defamation.<\/p>\n

The victims of this moral panic are legion \u2014 not even the Dalai Lama escaped unscathed.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s no wonder why, what with social arsonists like Massie insisting that Epstein masterminded a \u201cglobal sex trafficking scheme,\u201d and that until \u201cthere are rich men in handcuffs being perp-walked to the jail . . . this is still a cover-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

So much for Massie\u2019s \u201cprincipled libertarian\u201d schtick \u2014 or the concept of \u201cinnocent until proven guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

His whole construction gives up the game: If authorities haven\u2019t discovered enough evidence to lock up wrongdoers, that to Massie is proof of a conspiracy.<\/p>\n

This con, often paired with an insidious barrage of antisemitic nonsense, became the centerpiece of Massie\u2019s reelection campaign.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump starts Memorial Day by trashing \u2018Dumocrats, RINOS and Fools\u2019 who question his Iran plans<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the fact that his principal antagonist was Trump himself, and his opponent was funded by American citizens, Massie repeatedly claimed that Israel was \u201ctrying to buy an election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without ever presenting a shred of evidence to support it, he spent months advancing the conspiracy theory that Epstein was working with Israeli intelligence services, and \u201cthat\u2019s why there\u2019s so much effort in trying to stop this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Massie himself invited noxious bigot and fellow Epstein obsessive Marjorie Taylor Greene to a fundraiser to make text of the subtext by railing against \u201cJewish billionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n

And during a recent sit-down with still another Jew-baiter, he nodded along as Tucker Carlson \u2014 with all the grace of a drunk panda \u2014 implied that Trump had murdered the late sex criminal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the people who are also funding my opponent . . . , the people who are changing, dominating our foreign policy decisions,\u201d Massie replied, eager as ever to imagine a web of shadowy villains out to undermine him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the billionaires, and these are also the same people who are in the Epstein files,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

The Epstein circus is merely a symptom of a larger disease that\u2019s infected American political life.<\/p>\n

Among the others: slothful gullibility, crippling pessimism and all-consuming paranoia.<\/p>\n

Bad actors have discovered myriad ways to capitalize on the spread of this sickness.<\/p>\n

Carlson is hawking a steady stream of juvenile junk merch (his latest triumph is the \u201cFAGA\u201d hat, a less-than-clever slur equating support for the president with homosexuality).<\/p>\n

Candace Owens has become a mega-star by terrorizing Charlie Kirk\u2019s grieving widow.<\/p>\n

And Greene has spent the last six months basking in the left\u2019s strange new respect.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

In the marketplace, where these non-entities need only a small number of dedicated fans to profit, the conspiracy-theory grift \u2014\u00a0i.e. lying \u2014 has hit pay dirt.<\/p>\n

But in politics, their antics have proven less than amusing to voters who want to hear real solutions to America\u2019s problems, not some tortured explanation about why the Jews or the \u201cEpstein class\u201d are responsible for them.<\/p>\n

Trump has wisely excommunicated these \u201closers\u201d and \u201cnut jobs\u201d from his movement.<\/p>\n

And on Tuesday Massie\u2019s longtime constituents concurred, making a loser out of their own resident nut job.<\/p>\n

Read more Arthur Gea exits mid-match for bathroom break in wild French Open scene: \u2018I\u2019m gonna s\u2013t\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Isaac Schorr is a senior editor at Mediaite.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GOP congressman\u2019s involuntary retirement represented a massive step out of the conspiracy-driven fever swamp for the whole country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nThomas Massie's defeat brings the odious Epstein Era to a humiliating end - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=417\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thomas Massie's defeat brings the odious Epstein Era to a humiliating end - 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