Rep. Ro Khanna is having a moment. For good reason.
The congressman’s bill directing the U.S. Department of Justice to disclose the records from its investigations of convicted child sex trafficker and rapist Jeffrey Epstein passed the House by a 427-1 vote on Tuesday. Hours later, the Senate passed it unanimously.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed Khanna’s bill.
Getting any legislation through both chambers and then signed by the president is hard enough when you’re in the majority party. But Khanna, who represents Fremont and swaths of Silicon Valley, is a Democrat. And his was no typical bill.
The president had been longtime friends with the now-deceased notorious child rapist; he figures prominently in many already-disclosed Epstein records; and he fought like hell to block a vote on Khanna’s bill.
In fact, the president’s heavy-handed tactics to break up Khanna’s unlikely yet pivotal alliance with right-wing Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia, Nance Mace of South Carolina and Lauren Boebert of Colorado has exposed the most significant fracture yet in Trump’s heretofore near-complete control over House and Senate Republicans.
Until her alliance with Khanna over release of the Epstein files, Taylor-Greene had been the president’s most vocal, loyal ally. Now, after Trump has repeatedly attacked her online, calling her a “disgrace,” a “traitor” and “wacky,” she fears the president’s supporters will physically attack her.
The fight over releasing the Epstein files has “ripped MAGA apart,” Taylor-Greene said on Tuesday.
Khanna won’t take credit for that, but he completely deserves it.
“He saw an opportunity that others missed,” says Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College.
The others who missed it are Khanna’s own Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate.
Moments after Trump signed his bill Wednesday night, Khanna admitted that some members in his own caucus had told him his focus on the Epstein files was a fool’s errand.
“When I initially brought it up, people (within my party) would roll their eyes and said we should talk about the price of eggs and health care premiums,” Khanna said. “They said I was indulging conspiracies.”
Traveling around the country over the last year had convinced Khanna that demanding to know who Epstein’s accomplices were was no Beltway obsession. “There was real anger about an ‘Epstein Class’” — Khanna’s neologism for the rich, powerful men who could reputedly rape children and never face justice.
But, he said, naysayers in his caucus changed their tune after Massie jumped on board in July, filing a discharge petition that ultimately allowed Khanna’s bill to bypass a hostile Republican majority determined to keep it from getting to the House floor for a vote.
“Khanna showed initiative in pushing the Epstein issue,” says Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “Americans say they want more bipartisanship. Here’s an example of what working together across party lines can accomplish.”
What happens next with the Epstein files? Depends on whom you ask. Just because Khanna’s bill passed, plenty within his own party, including Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, don’t expect smooth sailing. If the government has open probes, it can still block records disclosures that might interfere with the investigations. So, because the president has ordered the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s links to Democrats, that could limit what is shared.
For his part, Khanna is more optimistic. “A very small percentage of the files” relate to any investigations, he says, so it would be hard for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to justify keeping them secret. That assumes Trump’s administration cares about following the law.
Whether Khanna can build bipartisan success beyond Epstein is an open question. But at least Silicon Valley’s congressman helped Americans resolve that Republicans and Democrats finally agree on one thing: Victims of child sexual assault deserve justice and their abusers do not deserve anonymity.
Reach Deputy Opinion Editor Max Taves at mtaves@bayareanewsgroup.com.