WASHINGTON — The four House Republicans who helped force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files called themselves “The Bravehearts” — an acknowledgment that their risky stand would require a stiff spine, especially given President Donald Trump’s fierce opposition to the move.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
As they later learned, the gambit would also upend their political futures.
Seven months after the House voted to release the Epstein files, sparking a Trump-led crusade against the rebellious quartet behind the effort, one of those four lawmakers is now an ex-member. Two of them won’t be returning to Congress next year. And another is facing the threat of a primary challenge next cycle.
“Everybody’s paying a price for it,” Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who spearheaded the Epstein resolution and lost his May primary to a Trump-backed challenger, told NBC News in an interview. “Trump became irrationally opposed to that more than [defections on] the ‘big, beautiful bill.’ It struck a nerve with him.”
Massie co-sponsored with a Democrat the bill that required Trump’s administration to release the Epstein files, Justice Department documents related to investigations of the deceased sex offender. Survivors and many Trump supporters had pushed for the files to be made public.
Initially only three other Republicans signed on: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who resigned from Congress late last year in part because of her feud with Trump over Epstein; Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who failed this week to make the runoff in her state’s gubernatorial primary race, in which Trump endorsed a rival; and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who publicly faced Trump’s wrath after she recently campaigned for Massie.
Sources close to the White House note Epstein wasn’t the only issue that soured the relationship between Trump and those four members. Massie has long been a thorn in the president’s side, including voting against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” while Greene started tobreak with Trumpon a wholehost of issueslast year after the White House discouraged her from a Senate bid.
Still, Trump and his allies went all out to defeat Massie, leading to the most expensive primary race in history. And he had threatened to do the same with Greene, before she decided to call it quits on her own midsession.
“From the White House’s perspective, they want everyone on the team, which means backing the president, always — it’s their job. If you want to make yourself the turd in the punchbowl, the Epstein stuff is a good way to do that,” said a source close to the White House, who, like others in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s thinking.
In a statement to NBC News, the White House said Trump has been “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein” and defended the president’s handling of the issue.
“By releasing thousands of pages of documents, cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena request, signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and calling for more investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends, President Trump has done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said.
Still, Trump’s frustration with the four members continued to grow, even as polling by his political allies obtained by NBC News found scant evidence that advocacy for releasing the files was swaying voters. Internal polling conducted in 2025 and early 2026 by the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA KY showed almost no voters in Massie’s district ranked the Epstein files as the most important issue during the height of the frenzy last October.
Mace, for her part, is convinced her push for the Epstein files is what cost her a Trump endorsement in the governor’s race. There’s no indication Trump had been planning on endorsing her prior to her Epstein vote, though the president did share a poll on social media in August showing Mace leading the pack, and she appeared to still be in good standing with the president at the time.
