Wyoming Republican U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis was one of the members of Congress who went to the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday to view some of the roughly 3 million unredacted files related to the federal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
That was the first day the Epstein files that have already been made public were available to Congress to view without redactions. Lummis is the only member of the Wyoming delegation to view them so far.
After getting an eyeful of just a fraction of the huge trove of documents, Lummis expressed a measure of shock.
“I've not been one of the members who has glommed onto this as an issue,” she told reporter Pablo Manriquez outside the Justice Department on Monday. “I’ve sort of intentionally deferred to others to find out about it. But 9-year-old victims … wow.
“Well, initially, my reaction to all this was I don't care. I don't know what the big deal is. But now I see what the big deal is, and it was worth investigating, and the members of Congress that have been pushing this were not wrong.”
Lummis hasn’t been vocal about Epstein, a convicted sex offender who reportedly took his own life in jail in 2019. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been paying attention, said her spokesman, Joe Jackson.
“Senator Lummis has always supported justice for Jeffrey Epstein’s victims of all ages — the same women that Democrats callously ignored for years until they spotted a political opportunity,” he said in a statement to Cowboy State Daily.
“Senator Lummis has long believed that sunlight is the best disinfectant and is praying the heartache these victims and their families have endured will finally be answered with true justice,” he added.
‘A Disgusting Monster’
U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate, said he doesn’t have to look at the files.
“The redacted files were terrible enough on their own, Senator Barrasso doesn’t need to review the unredacted files to confirm what he and the rest of the world already know: Jeffrey Epstein was a disgusting monster,” said his spokeswoman Laura Mengelkamp in a statement to Cowboy State Daily.
She goes on to say that Barrasso “appreciates the Justice Department’s commitment to making the files available for any member of Congress who would like to review them. He has always advocated for accountability and transparency and ensuring that victims are protected.”
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, said she’s glad to see the files getting more scrutiny.
"I voted to release the Epstein files to ensure Americans have the full transparency they deserve,” she said in a statement. “Now that Congress has access to these materials, I welcome the upcoming House Oversight Committee depositions of the Clintons as part of the investigation into the heinous crimes of Epstein and (Ghislaine) Maxwell.”
Hageman was referring to the former British socialite who is now serving 20 years in prison for child sex trafficking in connection with Epstein.
Other members of Congress who viewed some of the unredacted files have expressed shock and anger, including Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert.
“Yes, I saw some of them, not all of them, obviously,” she also told Manriquez. “And I’ll be going back tomorrow to see more.”
She said she feels that “there’s folks who are definitely implicated (as) co-conspirators. And you know, I don’t think everyone there that was talking about underage girls being trafficked are victims.”
Boebert also had a sharp retort when asked if Maxwell should be granted clemency for helping the Justice Department with its continuing investigation.
“I do not,” she snapped. “I think Ghislaine Maxwell should get more time, and she should definitely be in a harsher prison than what she's in. It's absolutely disgusting.”
About Those Names
While the files available to members of Congress at the Justice Department are supposed to be unredacted, there were still some names blocked, many members reported Monday.
That includes the two primary sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which led to the release of the files: Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, D-California.
Both reported that in the documents they viewed, they identified six names of presumably prominent people still redacted from the files.
They both called out the DOJ for trying to hide people who are “likely incriminated” by being in the Epstein files, The Guardian reports.
On Monday night, Khanna said he learned the names of the six people and on Tuesday posted their names to X: Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, Nicola Caputo, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
