Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) hold a news conference after reviewing unredacted portions of the Jeffrey Epstein files in Washington, DC on NoMa on February 9, 2026. (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
“The reality is that Donald Trump’s FBI scrubbed these files in March, long before Thomas Massie and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act,” said the California progressive.
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna on Tuesday read aloud on the House floor the names of half a dozen men he said are “likely incriminated” in files concerning Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex criminal and former friend of President Donald Trump.
“Yesterday, Congressman [Thomas] Massie [R-Ky.] and I went to the Department of Justice to read the unredacted Epstein files,” Khanna (Calif.) said. “We spent about two hours there, and we learned that 70 to 80% of the files are still redacted.”
“In fact, there were six wealthy, powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason,” the congressman continued. “When Congressman Massie and I pointed this out to the DOJ, they acknowledged their mistake, and now they have revealed the identity of these six powerful men.”
“These men are: Salvatore Nuara; Zurab Mikeladze; Leonic Leonov; Nicola Caputo; Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, CEO of Dubai Ports World; and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner, who was labeled as a ‘co-conspirator,’ by the FBI.” Khanna said.
.@RepThomasMassie and I forced last night the DOJ to disclose the identities of 6 men:
Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, Nicola Caputo, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner.
“Now my question is: Why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public?” Khanna asked. “And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files.”
Last year, Congress passed Khanna and Massie’s Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the public release of all relevant documents within 30 days. The legislation also empowered Attorney General Pam Bondi to redact large amounts of information that critics fear could include material that incriminates Trump, who Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Tuesday is mentioned “more than a million times” in the unredacted Epstein files.
Democratic lawmakers and Massie have accused the DOJ of violating the law by incomplete disclosure and blowing the legal deadline for publishing the documents.
Major update: Trump mentioned in the “unredacted” Epstein Files more than one million times.FBI scrubbed files before giving them to the DOJ, so many “unredacted” files remain redacted.Khanna reads the names of six men on the House floorHead of Ohio State gynecology received money from Epstein
“The story gets worse,” Khanna said Tuesday. “The reality is that Donald Trump’s FBI scrubbed these files in March, long before Thomas Massie and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act… That means the survivors’ statement to the FBI naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s island… they’re all hidden.”
None of the six named men had responded to Khanna’s action as of late Tuesday afternoon. A legal representative for Wexner previously told the Associated Press that prosecutors had informed the 88-year-old billionaire that he was “neither a co-conspirator nor a target in any respect,” and that he cooperated with investigators.
The names of the six men were entered into the Congressional Record as part of Khanna’s remarks. Inclusion in the Epstein files does not by itself prove or even imply any criminal wrongdoing.
“It’s time to begin with accountability for the Epstein class,” Khanna said during his remarks Tuesday. “Hold them in front of Congress, those people who visited the island or did business with Epstein after he was a convicted pedophile. Investigate them. Prosecute them. And let us return to democratic accountability in the United States of America.”
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US Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on January 15, 2026. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Another House Democrat ripped President Donald Trump and his Justice Department for making clear that “they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein files, while claiming to have fully complied with the law.”
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Friday that Attorney General Pam Bondi should be facing impeachment, pointing to the top Justice Department official’s handling of the Epstein files, efforts to force Minnesota to hand over its voter data, and arrest of journalists including former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made the call in response to Bondi’s Friday morning announcement that Lemon, independent journalist Georgia Fort, and two others were arrested in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month.
“Between this, Epstein, and her attempted extortion of MN voter files, Bondi should be up for impeachment too,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media, alluding to the ongoing effort to oust Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Following the arrests of Lemon and others, the Justice Department announced the release of more than 3 million pages of documents related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—more than a month after the passage of a deadline established by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed in November.
But the latest disclosure did not satisfy the lawmakers leading the push for full transparency. The Justice Department indicated Friday that it only released around half of the Epstein documents subject to review.
“Donald Trump and his Department of Justice have now made it clear that they intend to withhold roughly 50% of the Epstein files, while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. “The Oversight Committee subpoena directs Pam Bondi to release all the files to the committee, while protecting survivors. They are in violation of the law.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who floated impeachment proceedings against Bondi last month, said in a statement that he will be “reviewing closely to see if they release what I’ve been pushing for: the FBI 302 victim interview statements, a draft indictment and prosecution memorandum prepared during the 2007 Florida investigation, and hundreds of thousands of emails and files from Epstein’s computers.”
“Failing to release these files only shields the powerful individuals who were involved and hurts the public’s trust in our institutions,” said Khanna, the author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
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Mourners gather at a makeshift memorial in the area where Alex Pretti was shot dead a day earlier by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 25, 2026. (Photo by Octavio Jones/AFP via Getty Images)
“Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly thugs,” said Michael and Susan Pretti.
Michael and Susan Pretti urged the press and the public to counter the Trump administration’s baseless claims about their son, Alex Pretti, after he was fatally shot by US Border Patrol agents on a street in Minneapolis and immediately—with no evidence—declared a “domestic terrorist” by top White House officials.
Pretti’s parents expressed heartbreak as well as anger over their son’s killing, which no federal officials contacted the family about, leaving them to learn he had been fatally shot from an Associated Press reporter who reached out to them.
“Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital,” said the Pretti family. “Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact.”
They emphasized that Pretti acted as a “hero” in his final moments, moving to help a woman who had just been forcefully pushed to the ground by a federal agent.
“His last thought and act was to protect a woman,” they said before directly disputing claims by officials including White House Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, who have made claims that are contradicted by multiple videos of the shooting.
In addition to labeling Pretti a “domestic terrorist”—a claim likely stemming from a memo signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, which claims that acts of domestic terrorism include “impeding” or “doxing” law enforcement officers even though filming federal agents is a constitutional right—officials have claimed he “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and wanted to inflict “maximum damage” on the agents.
Bovino on Saturday refused to answer a direct question about when Pretti approached the officers with a weapon; videos show him holding a phone, not the firearm he was legally permitted to carry in a holster, and approaching the woman who was pushed to the ground. The agents then pushed him to ground and surrounded him before one reached into the fray and took Pretti’s gun just before at least one officer fired roughly 10 shots, killing him. Despite the fact that Pretti had just been disarmed and was on the ground, officials have called the shooting “defensive.”
“The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting,” said Michael and Susan Pretti. “Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by [President Donald] Trump’s murdering and cowardly thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed.”
“Please get the truth out about our son,” the Pretti family concluded. “He was a good man.”
Pretti had no criminal record. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, society, and the environment from University of Minnesota in 2011 and worked as a research scientist before going back to school to become a registered nurse.
Pretti’s father added in comments to the AP that his son “was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” and had exercised his First Amendment right to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s mass deportation and detention campaign and an ICE agent’s killing of Renee Good earlier this month.
“He thought it was terrible, you know, kidnapping children, just grabbing people off the street,” said his father. “He cared about those people, and he knew it was wrong, so he did participate in protests.”
After the fatal shooting, the son of a deceased veteran whom Pretti had cared for at the VA hospital posted a video of him reading a “final salute” for his father.
“My father’s final words to me were, ‘Continue to fight the good fight,” wrote the man. “He would be honored in Alex’s sacrifice, and ashamed of this current administration. In my dad’s words I encourage you all to continue to ‘fight the good fight.’”
The APreported that as of Saturday night, Pretti’s family still had not heard from federal officials about their son’s killing.
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The official White House social media account posted a digitally altered photograph (R) of Nekima Levy Armstrong being arrested for her participation in a protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on January 22, 2025. (Original photo from Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, altered photo from the White House)
“All of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters.”
Continuing its bizarre and often legally questionable use of social media to publicize law enforcement operations, the official White House account published an artificially generated deepfake image of a protester arrested on Thursday by the FBI.
Earlier that day, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had posted about Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of three people who were arrested for disrupting a service last week at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer and field office leader, David Easterwood, reportedly serves as a pastor.
Noem described Levy Armstrong, who leads a local civil rights organization known as the Racial Justice Network, as someone “who played a key role in orchestrating the Church Riots in St. Paul, Minnesota.”
There is notably no evidence that the protesters engaged in or threatened violence, as implied by her use of the word “riot.” Video shows protesters disrupting the service by chanting slogans like “ICE out” and demanding justice for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the protesters had been charged under the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which makes illegal any conspiracy to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate,” people from exercising “any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
In her post, Noem shared a photo of Levy Armstrong being led away by an agent, whose face is pixelated to hide his identity. In the photo, Levy Armstrong appears stone-faced and unfazed by the arrest.
Hours later, the official White House account shared the exact same image—accompanied by text describing her as a “far-left agitator”—but with one notable difference. Levy Armstrong’s face was digitally altered to make it appear as if she was sobbing profusely while being led out by the agent. Nowhere did the account make clear that the image had been doctored.
The White House has confirmed its official X account posted a fake image of a woman arrested in Minnesota after interrupting a service at a church where an ICE official appears to be a pastor. The White House image altered the actual photo to wrongly make it seem like the… pic.twitter.com/8sloiPu2Q9
“Did the White House digitally alter this image of Nekima Levy to make her cry???” asked Peter Rothpletz, a reporter for Zeteo, who described it as “bizarre, dark stuff.”
Sure enough, CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale later said the White House had “confirmed its official X account posted a fake image of a woman arrested in Minnesota after interrupting a service at a church where an ICE official appears to be a pastor,” and that “the White House image altered the actual photo to wrongly make it seem like the defendant was sobbing.”
Asked for comment, Dale said the White House directed him to a social media post by Kaelan Dorr, the White House deputy communications director, who wrote: “Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue.”
Posting artificially generated images of their targets sobbing has become a house style of sorts for the White House account.
In March 2025, the account posted an image, altered to appear in the style of a Studio Ghibli film, of Virginia Basora-Gonzalez, an alleged undocumented immigrant and convicted fentanyl trafficker, crying while handcuffed during her ICE arrest in Philadelphia.
In July, the White House posted an AI-altered photograph of Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) after he criticized an ICE raid in which agents arrested hundreds of farmworkers in Ventura County, California. They edited Gomez’s congressional photo to make it appear as if he was crying, referring to him as “Cryin’ Jimmy.”
ICE: Raids marijuana farms filled with illegal aliens
But the fake image of Levy Armstrong hardly appeared as a “meme.” It was subtle enough that, without having seen the original, it was not immediately apparent that it had been altered, raising concerns about the White House’s willingness to publish blatantly deceptive information pertaining to a criminal investigation.
Anna Bower, a senior editor at Lawfare, suggested that for the government to post a fake, degrading image of a criminal suspect could be considered a “prejudicial extrajudicial statement,” which can undermine the case against Levy Armstrong.
The Trump administration has been caught in an untold number of lies, particularly about those arrested, brutalized, and killed by its law enforcement agencies. This includes Renee Good herself, whom members of the Trump administration tarred as a “domestic terrorist” within hours after her killing, without conducting an investigation and despite video evidence to the contrary.
Bulwark journalist Will Saletan said that with this deepfake post, “all of us are on full notice that this White House feels no compunction about concocting obvious lies, concedes nothing when its lies are exposed, and should be presumptively disbelieved in all matters. Nothing they say should be accepted without independent confirmation.”
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A federal immigration agent directs observers after they arrested people at a residence on January 13, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this administration.”
Congressman Jamie Raskin got right to the point in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as he sought an answer to a question several Democratic lawmakers have raised in recent months regarding the Trump administration’s recruiting practices as it seeks to flood American communities with immigration officers.
“How many pardoned January 6th insurrectionists have been hired by your respective departments?” Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, asked the two officials.
The congressman wrote to Bondi and Noem as video evidence continues to mount of federal agents’ violent tactics in communities across the US following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent’s fatal shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good last week.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Raskin, “seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists.”
He pointed to “white nationalist ‘dog whistles’” it’s used in its recruitment campaigns that appear to target members of “extremist militias” like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters.
Potential ICE recruits have been bombarded by messages from DHS calling on them to help “defend the homeland” and images like one of a white Uncle Sam caricature standing at a crossroads with signs pointing one way—labeled “INVASION” and “CULTURAL DECLINE”—and another, labeled “HOMELAND” and “LAW AND ORDER.” The image and caption appeared to be a reference to the white nationalist text Which Way, Western Man? by William Gayley Simpson.
The groups and militias apparently being targeted by the recruitment push coordinated with one another on January 6, 2021 as their members and leaders were among those who stormed the US Capitol in an effort to stop former President Joe Biden’s electoral victory from being certified.
One of President Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office last year was pardoning more than 1,500 people convicted of participating in the attempted insurrection, and dozens of them have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes including child sexual assault, possession of child pornography, and domestic violence.
Other Democratic lawmakers have previously raised alarm about the lax hiring requirements DHS has put in place as it seeks to grow its ranks of ICE agents, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noting in an October letter to Noem that in its push to hire more so-called “patriots,” ICE has “changed the age requirements for new recruits.”
“DHS announced that applicants now can apply at the age of 18 and there is no age cap. ICE also removed its Spanish-language requirement—shortening the training program by five weeks—and is pursuing additional ways to expedite training,” wrote Durbin. “The loosening of hiring standards and training requirements is unacceptable and will likely result in increased officer misconduct—similar to or worse than what occurred during a small surge in hiring US Customs and Border Protection officers in the early 2000s.”
On Monday, Raskin pointed out that ICE agents have been permitted to go to great lengths to hide their identities with masks as they’ve tackled people to the ground, “detained and battered multiple pregnant women,” threatened people and confiscated their cellphones for filming them—a protected activity under the First Amendment—and rammed open the door of a home in Minneapolis as they apparently began “door-to-door” operations.
“Unique among all law enforcement agencies and all branches of the armed services, ICE agents conceal their identities, wearing masks and removing names from their uniforms. Why is that? Why do National Guard members, state, county, and local police officers, and members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines all routinely work unmasked while ICE agents work masked?” wrote Raskin.
“Who is hiding behind these masks?” he continued. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this administration.”
He demanded the release of records related to the solicitation or hiring of anyone charged or investigated for participating in the January 6 attack.
Raskin’s letter was sent as independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on leaked documents showing that ICE and Border Patrol officials on the ground are struggling to cope with both staffing and legal compliance issues following Good’s killing.
“While Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and others in the administration preen about justifying last week’s shooting and trumpet their war on ‘domestic terrorism,’ DHS is privately divided and hesitant about the latest deployments,” wrote Klippenstein, detailing efforts within the agency to find around 300 volunteers to deploy in Minneapolis, “in part due to opposition within the ranks.”
Following DHS’ aggressive recruiting push that appears to designed to appeal to extremist militias, “there might be some immature knuckleheads who think they are out there trying to capture Nicolás Maduro, but most field officers see a clear need for deescalation,” a high-ranking career official at DHS told Klippenstein. “There is genuine fear that indeed ICE’s heavy handedness and the rhetoric from Washington is more creating a condition where the officers’ lives are in danger rather than the other way around.”
Officials are reportedly pushing to rein in the agents whom the Trump administration has unleashed on communities including Minneapolis, where ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Good while she was sitting in her car after she had reportedly been given conflicting orders by officers.
While Trump has suggested Good was to blame for her killing because she was “disrespectful” to the officers and videos have surfaced of agents attacking and threatening people for filming and observing them, Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino sent a “legal refresher” to agents in the field, reminding them that protesters who use profanity, insults, and rude gestures are not breaking any laws.
Noncompliance with law enforcement and recordings of ICE agents are protected activities, the document reminds officers.
Sarah Saldaña, a former director of ICE, also recently said that DHS’ decision to frame its recruiting push as a “war effort” would inevitably result in a federal anti-immigration force that views itself as being at war with the communities it’s sent to.
DHS is promoting a viewpoint among recruits that “the quicker we get out there and run over people, the better off this country will be,” Saldaña told the Washington Postdays before Good was killed. “That mentality you’re fostering tends to inculcate in people a certain aggressiveness that may not be necessary in 85% of what you do.”
A DHS official who spoke to Klippenstein said that “the claim is that recruiting is up, but there is also dread that the gung-ho types that ICE and the Border Patrol are bringing in have a propensity towards confrontation and even violence.”
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