Thomas Massies defeat brings the odious Epstein Era to a humiliating end

Rep.Thomas Massie’s defeat at the hands of a Republican primary challenger backed by President Trump marked the merciful end of the wretched Epstein Era.The Kentucky congressman’s involuntary retirement represents not just a notch in the belt of the MAGA political machine ahead of November’s high-stakes midterm elections, but a massive step out of the fever swamp for the country as a whole.By giving the conspiracy theorists bipartisan cover, Massie bears much responsibility for keeping their circus on the road.Jeffrey Epstein was an execrable man who used his money, fame and power to commit terrible crimes.But in the years since his death, scores of similarly execrable actors have committed terrible sins of their own under the guise of pursuing justice for Epstein victims.Chief among them was Massie, the gadfly who, alongside Rep.

Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), championed the Epstein Files Transparency Act.A lot of good that’s done: Their grandstanding and circumvention of a legal process designed to protect innocents resulted in the amplification of smears against countless people, from Trump to the four private citizens falsely accused of wrongdoing after Massie and Khanna reviewed unredacted Justice Department files.Khanna mourned his partner-in-opportunism’s loss on Tuesday, declaring that Massie sacrificed his career for having “the guts to take on the Epstein class.”If that’s a euphemism for “the temerity to use others’ pain and righteous outrage into a blunt, poorly wielded political weapon,” then right on, Ro.The Epstein drama took on new life last year as Trump began his second term.The president’s reflexive enemies in both parties saw his past relationship with Epstein — which ended sometime in the early-to-mid 2000s — as an chance to finally bring together the ever-closing walls around him.But there was never any “there” there, so they had to settle for innuendo, dirty jokes and defamation.The victims of this moral panic are legion...