Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑KY) reacted Thursday to a leaked video circulating on social media that shows Joseph Schnitt, an Acting Deputy Chief in the Department of Justice, saying that DOJ is selectively managing the release of documents related to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. According to Massie, it proves the list of accused linked to Epstein is “not a conspiracy theory.”

Earlier on Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office scrambled into crisis mode after the senior DOJ official was secretly recorded telling someone he was with on a date that the Epstein files would be distorted to shield Republicans.

Schnitt was overheard disclosing this information to a woman he met through the Hinge dating app, unaware that she was actually an undercover operative for the O’Keefe Media Group, which is run by conservative activist James O'Keefe.

In the footage surfaced online on Thursday, Schnitt can be heard stating that the DOJ would execute a politically skewed release: “redact every Republican or conservative person in those files, leave all the liberal, Democratic people in those files, and have a very slanted version of it come out.”

Moreover, he mentioned that moving Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, to a lower-security prison defied the Bureau of Prisons' regulations because of her sex offender status, "which means they’re offering her something to keep her mouth shut.”

"Why would he be lying?" Massie said during an appearance on O'Keefe's podcast Wednesday evening. He added that the survivors who addressed a presser on Wednesday said the same thing about Maxwell, "that she was getting a light sentence."

He added: "It's not a conspiracy theory. We know it's happening. And you got somebody inside the DOJ who is admitting it's highly unusual."

Massie, who is leading a discharge petition that would force the release of Epstein files alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), said his Republican colleagues are "not happy about covering up for a pedophile." He claimed that President Donald Trump's "political machine" is intimidating Republicans into staying away from the petition.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet