In a stunning congressional revelation that quickly unraveled into embarrassment, California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna publicly named six individuals he described as “wealthy, powerful men that the DoJ hid” in the Jeffrey Epstein files, only for the Department of Justice to reveal that four of them were ordinary people with no ties to the disgraced financier.
Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, read the names during a House session, prompting sharp criticism from the DOJ. A spokesperson for Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated, “Rep. Ro Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie forced the unmasking of completely random people selected years ago for an FBI lineup — men and women. These individuals have NOTHING to do with Epstein or Maxwell.” Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie had joined Khanna in the effort, commenting, “There’s millions of files, right? And in a couple of hours, we found six men whose names have been redacted, who are implicated in the way that the files are presented.”
The blunder exposed unsuspecting individuals whose names appeared in redacted FBI documents merely as part of a photo lineup from years prior. Among them was Salvatore Nuarte of Queens, New York, who was unaware of the controversy until contacted by The Guardian. Nuarte immediately reached out to Khanna’s office and received an email response attributing the error to the DOJ.
“I don’t know if they know what they are doing over there at the justice department,” Nuarte told the newspaper, expressing his outrage. “How can I clear my name?” His frustration highlighted the unintended consequences of the lawmakers' actions, as his name was thrust into the national spotlight without any actual connection to Epstein.
Another victim of the unmasking was IT manager Leonid Leonov, whose name had been misspelled in the files as “Leonic.” Leonov, equally incensed, emphasized his complete lack of association with Epstein, stating to The Guardian, “I don’t even have a second or third degree connection to him. Never worked for him, nothing.”
The incident drew widespread rebuke from the DOJ, which accused the lawmakers of irresponsibly revealing the identities of innocent bystanders. While Khanna and Massie aimed to expose hidden connections in the Epstein documents, their rapid effort instead spotlighted the risks of unredacting sensitive files without full verification.
As the fallout continues, questions linger about the handling of the Epstein files and the balance between transparency and protecting unrelated individuals from unwarranted scrutiny.
