Thomas Massie Is No American Hero
Rep. Thomas Massie has gained a following thanks to his pursuit of transparency with the Epstein files, but his track record reveals a strong alignment with Vladimir Putin.
Withdrawal from NATO. Abolishing the Federal Reserve. Ending aid to Ukraine. These are fringe positions that sound familiar to those tracking the desires of a certain diminutive dictator who lives in Moscow. But they are also the singular obsessions of one Congressman, Thomas Massie (R-KY), who has gained prominence (and an audience) in recent months for demanding government transparency with the Epstein files.
Massie, along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and now former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) were the primary sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R. 4405, passed in November 2025) which required the Department of Justice to release its records, without unnecessary redactions, within a thirty day deadline. After missing the initial deadline, the government has largely complied, with over three million documents released so far — and another potential three million or so still withheld.
This would seem to be a great victory for transparency over a case that has harmed thousands of victims and upended American democracy and global politics. The public is understandably and rightly outraged that Epstein — a sex pest, pervert, racist, and manipulator — would have such outsized influence over the realms of business and government. And we should seek both answers and justice.
But few have paid attention to Massie's record in Congress, which reveals a longstanding commitment to Moscow's policy agenda.
Congressional Track Record
Massie has consistently voted against aid to Ukraine, citing his commitment to non-interventionist ideology. Greene and Khanna have also aligned with him on multiple occasions. He has been a consistent “Nay” on every major aid package (2022, 2023, 2024), and often part of a tiny minority that has voted against provisions such as war crimes investigations into Vladimir Putin.
As Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine unfolded in 2022, Massie and Greene voted against suspension of energy imports from Russia and the suspension of normal trade relations. They also voted against direct aid to Ukraine in May 2022.
Le Monde with AP
Khanna voted for the bill, but then signed a controversial letter from “Justice Democrats” supporting a ceasefire and diplomatic pivot in Ukraine, which was subsequently withdrawn in the face of public backlash.
Khanna justified his signing of the letter by saying, “It’s my obligation to make sure we are mitigating the risk of nuclear war, that we are making sure that the conflict doesn’t escalate and that we are working toward a negotiated settlement that will be a just peace. That is the framework of the letter.” Khanna's statement directly mirrors Kremlin propaganda that seeks to pit aid for Ukraine against a rising risk of nuclear war. Khanna has also received backing from David Sacks, current AI and cryptocurrency czar in the Trump administration.
Other House members demonstrating Russia alignment include Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), all of whom voted against an additional Ukraine direct aid package in 2024.
Massie's Moscow alignment isn't new, either. In 2017, he was the lone dissenter in the entire House on bills sanctioning North Korea. While the rest of the GOP voted to sanction that rogue nation, Massie stood alone. Massie has long been receiving endorsements from notable Russia-aligned proxies Alexander Dugin and Cassandra MacDonald.
This new vanguard, consisting of Massie, Luna, Mace, Boebert, Greene and Khanna, has demonstrated repeated alignment with Putin's agenda for the United States.
Massie's Anti-US Policy Agenda
Since 2024, Massie has twice introduced bills to abolish the Federal Reserve, which would all but put an end to the dollar system and terminate the dollar's status as a global reserve currency.
The bills, which aim to “End the Fed,” (borrowing a slogan popularized by Massie's mentor, Ron Paul, and his son and fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul), have not been successful, but demonstrate a clear commitment to another long-time Putin policy goal.
Introduced in December 2025, Massie’s H.R. 6508, titled the “NATO Act” (literally, the “Not A Trusted Organization Act”), mandates that the President formally denounce the North Atlantic Treaty within 30 days and prohibits the use of any federal funds for the alliance's military or civil budgets.
The law also codifies the Kremlin’s specific geopolitical grievances, explicitly validating Russian military doctrine characterizing NATO expansion as a “pervasive threat” to Russian security.
The bill directly cites Vladimir Putin’s 2007 Munich Security Conference speech to label NATO expansion a “serious provocation” and frames the 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a predictable response to these “perceived security threats.” By defining NATO as a "Cold War relic" whose mission is "irrelevant," the bill adopts the specific historical revisionism utilized by Moscow to justify its aggression in Eastern Europe.
Massie also successfully introduced an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requiring the administration to report on casualty and equipment losses for both sides of the conflict in Ukraine, a measure he explicitly described as a tactic to ensure Congress received “bad news” that would create reluctance to continue funding the war. He was also one of only three Republicans to vote against a resolution refusing to recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea, effectively validating Putin’s territorial conquest.
Why Putin Benefits from Epstein Transparency
It may seem puzzling that if Massie and Trump are both aligned with Putin's agenda that Massie would pursue exposure of the Epstein files, which many see as potentially harmful to Trump. Would this not harm Putin's agenda more than help advance it?
However, many misunderstand Russia's goals towards the United States and the West, which are not simply to extract concessions through control of leaders like Trump, but to demoralize the population and denigrate the project of democracy.
Dave Troy
As we have reported previously, Project Russia, a book series that describes an explicit plan to expose Western democracies as decadent, dishonest, and dysfunctional, requires exactly such exposures. Russia knows what Epstein was doing and that exposure of his activities will lead to chaos, disruption, and disillusionment. The goal? Get voters to stop caring.
The New Vanguard
Massie and his cohort of vanguard soldiers thus serve as a “stick” to keep Trump in line, extracting whatever they can from him before forced retirement. And by championing transparency, Massie and Khanna have hooks into both parties that can serve to position them well as a new phase of American politics unfolds.
The MAGA movement, closely associated with Donald Trump, appears to be on the way out. Marjorie Taylor Greene has loudly departed from the movement and has denounced Donald Trump in favor of a new “America First” nativist movement. Elon Musk has branded his America PAC operation in the same terms, and has pledged to make a major investment in politics in 2026 and beyond. It seems likely that Musk will bankroll a new movement, without Donald Trump and led by J.D. Vance, with hooks into ideologically compatible networks in Europe.
Musk also explicitly backed Rep. Massie in his public disputes with Donald Trump, promising to fund his re-election effort. He funneled nearly $300 million into Republican causes through his “America PAC” during the 2024 election.
What Happens Next?
Expect Thomas Massie to continue to try to leverage his Epstein push to build goodwill and credibility for himself, Khanna, Greene, and other Russia-aligned characters in Congress. He will also deflect blame for Epstein away from Russia and Putin (claiming that such analysis is ‘Russophobic’) while also trying to direct blame, without evidence, towards “Israel” and “Mossad.” (Our analysis suggests that the Putin regime was using Epstein's network to try to influence Israeli politics — not the other way around.)
Massie has deflected attention from his Russia ties previously. In 2017, he met with Maria Butina, a Russian national who was later sentenced to prison for acting as an unregistered foreign agent aiming to infiltrate American conservative political groups.
Following Butina's 2018 arrest, Massie deflected scrutiny by publishing an opinion piece wherein he portrayed the U.S. response to Russian influence as “Russophobic rhetoric” that had devolved into a “witch hunt.”
It seems that for Russia's influence agents in Washington, there is truly nothing new under the sun. ◼
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Dave Troy
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Dave Troy
