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US Congressman Ro Khanna read out the names of six “wealthy, powerful men” on the House floor Tuesday that he said were improperly redacted from files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to Khanna, the six men whose identities were initially concealed are Les Wexner, the founder of Victoria’s Secret; Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of Dubai-based DP World; Salvatore Nuara; Zurab Mikeladze; Leonic Leonov; and Nicola Caputo.
Khanna said he and Rep. Thomas Massie reviewed unredacted Epstein materials Monday during a two-hour visit to the US Department of Justice, where they found that roughly 70% to 80% of the files remain redacted, despite a law mandating public release with limited exceptions.
“Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?” Khanna said during his floor remarks. “If we found six men they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many they are covering up for in those three million files.”
Khanna accused the FBI of scrubbing the records months before Congress passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which allows redactions primarily to protect victims’ identities.
Massie, who had previously said he would not disclose the names himself, later said on the US social media company X’s platform that the Justice Department unredacted several documents following his criticism, including files listing potential co-conspirators.
Massie said Wexner was labeled a co-conspirator in a 2019 FBI document, though he emphasized that appearing in the Epstein files “does not prove guilt.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded on X by saying that the Justice Department had unredacted all non-victim names, stressing that Wexner’s name already appeared repeatedly in the Epstein files and that the DOJ was “committed to transparency.”
The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million pages, 2,000 videos and 180,000 images under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last November.
Epstein was found dead in his New York City jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He pleaded guilty in a court in the state of Florida and was convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, but critics call the relatively minor conviction a “sweetheart deal.”
His victims have alleged that he operated a sprawling sex trafficking network that was used by members of the wealthy and political elite. (AA)
