U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna names six men in Epstein files, calls for tech elite who visited island to be investigated

Congressman Ro Khanna stood on the House floor Tuesday and revealed the names of six powerful men — most of them not widely known — he implied were implicated but improperly blacked out from newly released case files on late financier and alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat, and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky who co-authored a bipartisan bill to release the files, said they had identified the six improperly redacted names after a special viewing of files at the U.S. Department of Justice. The accused the DOJ of improperly withholding material they say should be released.

“If we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files,” Khanna, a Silicon Valley Democrat, said.

Khanna’s public reveal was another step toward holding accountable wealthy, elite men whom he believes either sexually assaulted girls and young women allegedly trafficked by the New York financier, or visited and partied with Epstein on his Caribbean island knowing he was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute in 2008. He died in a New York jail in 2019 facing federal sex trafficking charges.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. But when it released another trove of documents late last month it explained that information was withheld if it was duplicative, violated attorney-client privilege, included “depictions of violence,” or was unrelated to the Epstein case. Redactions were “limited to the protection of victims and their families” and some “pornographic images.”

“Notable individuals and politicians were not redacted in the release of any files,” the Justice Department said in a statement Jan. 30.

Khanna did not explain how the men he identified Tuesday were implicated in the files. But he said he is certain there are many more, and that anyone who visited the island, including Silicon Valley’s tech elite, should be hauled before Congress.

“If there are emails saying that they visited the island, they should be brought before Congress and asked questions under oath,” Khanna told the Mercury News in an interview Tuesday. “They should be investigated.”

Khanna and Massie forced the release of the Justice Department’s files with the passage of their Epstein Files Transparency Act last fall. But 70% to 80% of the files they reviewed Monday “are still redacted,” he said. The FBI made the redactions on President Trump’s order last March, he said. He called it a farce, “but it also asks a fundamental question, who are they protecting?”

Included in the redactions were entire statements of sexual abuse survivors, who presumably named their abusers, said Khanna who has met with numerous women and heard their stories.

“People are tired of rich and powerful people thinking they’re above the law,” Khanna said in the phone interview from Washington, D.C. “They’re disgusted that so many of the biggest names in finance and tech and real estate visited an island of someone who was a known pedophile and have not had to answer whether they saw young girls being raped or paraded around naked, and they’re angry that these names are being protected more than the survivors.”

Several of Silicon Valley’s top executives were named in the files, all carrying on relationships or friendly correspondence with Epstein after his 2008 conviction of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl: LinkedIn CEO Reid Hoffman visited the island at least once, later posting on X that doing so was a “a mistake;” and Tesla founder Elon Musk had emailed Epstein in 2012, asking, “What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk later posted on X that he never visited that “creepy island.”

Neither have been criminally charged and there’s no indication they are under investigation involving their dealings with Epstein.

The two biggest names that Khanna publicly named Tuesday are billionaire businessman Les Wexner, who turned Victoria’s Secret into an international brand and whose name had already been associated with Epstein, and Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. The four others are Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo.

Khanna offered no evidence of wrongdoing by any of them involving Epstein.

According to the New York Post, Epstein had managed Wexner’s finances, and his lawyers told investigators around time of Epstein’s arrest that he had no knowledge of any alleged sex trafficking.

After inquiries from Khanna and Massey, the Justice Department acknowledged the six names Khanna exposed Tuesday were redacted in error, Khanna said.

“The FBI sent scrubbed files,” to the Justice Department, Khanna said on the House floor. “That means the survivor statements to the FBI, naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s Island, who went to his ranch, went to his home and raped and abused underage girls or saw underage girls being paraded, they’re all hidden.”

Already, former President Bill Clinton, whose name appears in the files will be questioned by Congress, Khanna said.

“And we need (Microsoft founder Bill) Gates and all the other people who are mentioned, including Donald Trump,” to come before Congress, he said.

The United States is facing “a real moral reckoning,” he added. “Are we going to say that we’re going to give a pass to people if they’re rich and powerful enough, if they had the terrible judgment of having business relationships with Epstein after he was a convicted pedophile?”