QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE

On 2026-09-16, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY-4) delivered a floor speech titled "QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE" in the House.

QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 146 (Wednesday, September 16, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 146 (Wednesday, September 16, 2026)] [House] [Pages H5924-H5930] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] QUESTION OF PERSONAL PRIVILEGE Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, I seek recognition for a question of personal privilege. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair has been made aware of a valid basis for the gentleman's point of personal privilege. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized for 1 hour. Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, roughly 3 weeks ago, the Speaker of the House said: ``Let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massie's comment is.'' An article said that Johnson said that ``Republicans are here to work'' and will remain in Washington throughout September, according to the House calendar. He goes on to say: ``That is a nonsensical statement by someone who is not participating as a full Member of the Congress, and it is really sad that he doesn't.'' Well, I am here today to let you know that I am a full participating Member of the House of Representatives. In fact, when other people want to go home, I am here to work. I am here to get justice for the Epstein victims, the survivors. I am here to get the price of food and fuel down for our constituents. We have solutions. We just refuse to pass them. What happened a couple of weeks ago is that I introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II discharge petition. I predicted that the House would take days off the calendar in order to avoid a vote on this again. {time} 1330 If you remember a year ago, we had the Epstein recess, I call it. My colleague, Ro Khanna, and I had been very successful in collecting names. We were just two signatures short of 218 on a discharge petition, and the leadership of this body recessed this body for weeks to avoid swearing in one Member who would have been the 218th vote. I was here. I was ready to work, to be a fully participating Member of Congress. Well, the Speaker saw otherwise. The leadership here saw otherwise, and they kept Congress shut down for weeks. We came back. I got that 218th signature, and the bill that Ro Khanna and I coauthored became law. Every Member, except for one Member of this House, voted for our legislation that they had criticized for months. If it was so bad, why did they all vote for it? That bill went to the Senate. It passed by unanimous consent. If you ask the Senators, can you pass one of our House bills, what will they say? Well, we will see if we get it on the docket. That is going to take at least 3 days. We have got to get a 60-vote threshold to overcome the filibuster, and so it is going to be a while. How long did it take them to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act? They passed it before it got there. It left this House, and on the walk between the House and the Senate, they made a unanimous consent to pass that bill as soon as it got there. Nobody objected. The President himself signed that bill. He had earlier said it would be a hostile act to even support that bill. What came of it: 3 million files released. Now, we have yet to see justice here in the United States, but we watched a British ambassador to the United States lose his job. He was sacked. We saw a prince of England lose his title. We saw the former Prime Minister of Norway arrested and convicted--maybe not convicted yet, but arrested. We saw the Minister of Culture in France receive the same fate. CEOs and presidents of universities resigned--over a hoax? Somebody should have told them it was a hoax, because that is what we were told, that it was a hoax. Folks, it wasn't a hoax. There are still 3 million of those files that are being withheld at the Department of Justice. The ones that have been released have been overly redacted, in contravention of that law. What would a fully participating Member of Congress do if he got a law enacted against the will of the President, against the will of the Speaker, against all odds, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the country will not follow the law? What would a fully participating Member of Congress do? Well, I think he would do what I did. I wrote, along with Ro Khanna and Teresa Leger Fernandez--by the way, when did it become a dirty word to work across the aisle? When did that become forbidden? I thought that was supposed to be a good thing, to form coalitions. Oh, Massie, you know, he can't get anything done. He can't get people to agree with him. Madam Speaker, 427-1 was the vote on the Epstein files. Come on. I think that is a pretty big coalition. It was more than just getting the files released. My colleague, Ro Khanna, and I held the biggest press conference that has occurred in Washington, D.C., in at least a decade, for as long as I have been here. Is that something a not fully participating Member of Congress would do? I don't think so. Why did we do it: to give a voice to the survivors. We gave them a venue to speak to you, the people in power--the people who were hiding the files at the DOJ, at the FBI, at the U.S. Attorney's Office. For the first time ever, we gave them a voice. We gave them a platform. They were brave. They stepped up. They told their very tragic and sad stories. They compelled the rest of this body to do the right thing, after resisting for so long. That gets us to where we are now on the Epstein files. Ro Khanna, Teresa Leger Fernandez, and I wrote another bill. What it does is simple. It says, Mr. Attorney General, if you refuse to prosecute the co-conspirators of Jeffrey Epstein, the rapists, the pedophiles, the ones who financed it, and the ones who covered it up--if you refuse to do it at Epstein island, in New York, Florida, or New Mexico, this bill is going to give the files to the State attorneys general in the various States so that they can prosecute these crimes. I have talked to the attorney general of New Mexico. Guess what. There are crimes that occurred at Zorro Ranch for which there is no statute of limitations. We can still bring these pedophiles to justice. He is ready to do it, but the Attorney General of this country will not cooperate with the attorney general of that State. So the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, would make that happen, would allow for that to happen. It does something else that is important. The survivors need closure. This Attorney General will not share those files with the survivors, the files that were generated on their behalf. We call them survivors because some are no longer alive. I am talking about the victims who are still alive, who survived the trauma and the shame, and were subjected to horrible things by these men. These brave women, we are giving them standing in court to get their own damn files, that they can't get now. For some of them, it was so traumatic they can't even remember what they told the FBI at the time. That is important. We also give standing to Members of this body. Who would not want to make the legislative branch just a little more capable of getting its laws carried out in the way that they were meant to be carried out? It gives Members of Congress standing to go in front of a judge and test the executive branch's flawed legal reasoning for withholding 3 million files. [[Page H5925]] Why do we want to do that? Because their reasoning is such a joke, that in front of any judge for more than a minute, their arguments could not be sustained. Let me give you an example. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, the first version that this fully participating Member of Congress ushered through this body and through the Senate and got the White House to sign against their will, the first bill says that the DOJ has to give us and the public, internal memos, documents, and emails concerning decisions of whether to prosecute or not prosecute and whether to investigate or not investigate. That is at the heart of this issue. Why did our government fail us? Who was it at DOJ or FBI that decided to create two tiers of justice? We want to see those internal discussions. What does the Attorney General argue now? Oh, I am sorry. We are going to exercise our deliberative process privilege. Well, here's the problem: that is a FOIA term of art, Freedom of Information Act term of art. It does not apply to a law that was passed by both Chambers and signed by the President. Even if it did, the law itself pierces through the previous law. That is what any judge in this country, if they looked at it on the facts, would agree to. New laws override the old laws. I am not an attorney, but as a fully participating Member of Congress, I do serve on the Judiciary Committee. I know the simple concept that a new law overrides the old law. The judges know that, too. That is why this next bill is so important. That gets me to why--we are going to take these--at first, it was: we are just going to cancel two weeks off the calendar. We know why that happened. We know why that happened. It is to keep the Epstein Files Transparency Act from getting the 218 votes on the discharge petition, ripening over 7 days, and passing before the election, thereby making the Senate be accountable in the weeks leading up to the election. Oh, my gosh. We can't have that. We can't have Senators called to task while they are stumping and spreading their campaign promises. Oh, no, we can't put them on the spot like that and ask them if they are going to vote for transparency and justice for the survivors. That is why they cut two weeks off the calendar. Isn't it ironic that I was called not a fully participating Member of Congress? I am the one who most wants to be here those two weeks. {time} 1340 They got canceled. I said they would probably cancel them. We were told, oh, nope. That is a ludicrous idea. Let me tell you how stupid Thomas Massie's comment is. Those were the words of the Speaker. Forty-eight hours later, what did he do? He did exactly what I pr