Thomas Massie has accused Donald Trump of desperately trying to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files saga by directing the government to release information about alien life.
The Kentucky Republican, who spearheaded efforts to force the Department of Justice to release all documents linked to the late pedophile, accused the administration of deploying the “ultimate weapon of mass distraction” with the announcement.
“But the Epstein files aren’t going away… even for aliens,” Massie posted on X.
The 79-year-old president posted on Truth Social late Thursday that he is directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon, and other relevant government agencies to release all files related to “alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).”
Trump said the announcement comes after “tremendous interest shown” in the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists. Last weekend, former President Barack Obama caused a stir after claiming on a podcast that aliens are “real,” but that he personally has not seen them.
“They’re not being kept in, what is it? Area 51. There’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” he added.
Obama later clarified that he was suggesting that, “statistically,” it is likely that there is some form of life somewhere else in the universe, given how vast it is.
“But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens are low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us,” Obama posted on Instagram. “Really!”
Trump accused Obama of disclosing “classified information” with his comments about the existence of aliens.
“I don’t know if they’re real or not,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday. “I may get him out of trouble by declassifying.”
The Trump administration has been widely condemned for its handling of the Epstein files.
Massie’s and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna’s Epstein Files Transparency Act directed the Department of Justice to release all its files connected to Epstein, who died in 2019, by Dec. 19, 2025.
The DOJ has released more than 3 million files related to Epstein, while acknowledging that nearly 3 million more were being withheld for various reasons, including ongoing cases and the sensitive nature of some materials.
“The DOJ said it identified over 6m potentially responsive pages but is releasing only about 3.5m after review and redactions,” Khanna said in a January statement following the latest release. Khanna believes that “hundreds of thousands of emails and files” from Epstein’s computers are still to be made public.
Several Trump officials cheered on his “weapon of mass distraction” after he ordered the release of files on aliens and UFOs.
In a post on X, Hegseth shared Trump’s social media announcement with alien and saluting-face emojis.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt praised the move as “OUT OF THIS WORLD NEWS.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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