It was still Tuesday night when Marjorie Taylor Greene had already settled on a cause of death. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky congressman who had made himself one of Capitol Hill's most recognizable libertarian disruptors, had just lost his Republican primary — and Greene, never one to let a moment pass without a verdict, delivered hers fast.
“Releasing the Epstein files was our demise,” Greene said publicly in the hours after Massie's defeat, according to reporting by The Hill. The line landed with the particular weight of someone who had watched the whole thing play out and had thoughts she was not planning to keep to herself.
Massie had spent considerable political capital pushing for the release of files connected to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, whose death in a Manhattan federal facility in 2019 produced a conspiracy-theory ecosystem that has never fully quieted. The files in question — the scope and content of which have been contested and debated across multiple news cycles — became a cause that drew intense enthusiasm from certain corners of the MAGA base and equally intense wariness from others who saw electoral exposure in the subject matter.
Whether the Epstein push was the proximate cause of Massie's loss, a contributing factor, or a convenient explanation from a colleague processing a bad night remains an open question. Greene's framing places the blame on the issue rather than the candidate — a distinction that will matter if the files debate continues to resurface in Republican primaries ahead of the 2026 midterm cycle.
Massie had held his seat since 2012. The primary result ends one of the longer runs of any House libertarian-aligned member in recent memory.