When the mainstream media devours one of its own acolytes, your Spidey Sense ought to tingle. After all, outlets like the Washington Post and the New York Times aren’t just held in high regard by the liberal elite; they drive the political narrative. Conservatives lost faith in the mainstream media long ago, but for the Democratic Party establishment, the Post and the Times are still required reading.
They’re two of the loudest, most influential voices in the left-wing echo chamber.
So, when one of ’em suddenly turns the screws on a high-profile Democratic politician — especially a politician with presidential aspirations — pay extra-close attention. It means some sort of friction was bubbling beneath the surface.
What kind of friction?
That’s harder to say. In the case of the Washington Post’s savage, brutal takedown of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), it’s probably one of four things:
Theory One: Personal and/or ideological animosity between the journalist and politician. It could be that the author of the piece, James Kirchick, has a bone to pick with Khanna. Kirchick supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, whereas Khanna backed Bernie Sanders, so perhaps this is payback. (Kirchick noted Khanna’s “disloyalty” to the Clintons multiple times.) Kirchick is also a vocal supporter of Israel, has criticized media bias against the Jewish State, and skewered Khanna’s flip-flops on Israel and AIPAC repeatedly in the article, too.
I suspect someone — and I’ll tell you EXACTLY who at the end — fed info to Kirchick to settle a political score, knowing Kirchick hated Khanna as well.
Theory Two: Behind-the-scenes, the liberal establishment knows Ro Khanna would be disastrous as a presidential frontrunner, so there’s a campaign to sabotage his 2028 bid for the Democratic nomination before it gains momentum. It’s a not-so-subtle signal to all the other left-wing tastemakers: Stay away from this guy.
Theory Three: It’s a hit-piece on behalf of one of Khanna’s 2028 rivals. A few weeks ago, another Washington Post article ranked the Dems’ presidential hopefuls: Rep. Khanna was placed in the “Dark Horse” category, along with Gretchen Whitmer and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Any Democratic candidate competing in Khanna’s “lane” as a left-wing, Sanders-esque populist would have a motive to kneecap his campaign and kill his funding, because there’s probably not enough room for both of ’em at the top.
Theory Four: This proves that the Epstein conspiracy is REAL! After all, the Post is owned by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos [slow wink], and the headline of Kirchick’s piece is, “How Ro Khanna Turned a Sex Trafficking Scandal Into a Campaign Stunt.” Expect the Tin Hat Brigade to connect Khanna’s Epstein obsession with this attack, framing it as retribution from the rich, powerful oligarchs. Already, on far-left message boards like Reddit, the top-voted comment for this article is “Bezo’s WaPo has been insanely hostile to any investigation of the Epstein scandal, really makes you think.”
(By the way, the probability of these four theories was ranked from highest to lowest. If no additional Khanna-bashing articles run in the next 10 days, it was almost certainly #1. But if more articles emerge, it likely means it’s #2 or #3. Getcha popcorn ready.)
Clearly, Khanna’s role in promoting the Epstein “conspiracy” has vastly improved his presidential odds. From boosting his media appearances to elevating his public profile, Khanna has gotten more goodies from Epstein than anyone this side of Bill Gates. As The Hill wrote, “Ro Khanna’s Role in Epstein Files May Be Catnip for Democratic Voters”:
When Rep. Ro Khanna took to the House floor this week to read aloud the names of six “wealthy, powerful men” whose identities were originally redacted in the Jeffrey Epstein files, it catapulted the California Democrat further into the national spotlight.
In recent months, Khanna has helped lead the charge around the Epstein case, meeting with victims and pushing for the full release of court documents. In doing so, he’s shifted the political narrative — framing the scandal not just as a saga of abuse but a broader flash point of wealth and power.
Now, as Khanna considers whether to run for president in 2028, he is quietly positioning himself as a leading voice in the progressive lane — one that could dominate if Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) decides to run for the Senate instead.
Unfortunately, most of those six “wealthy, powerful men” were completely innocent. Khanna — and his Republican bootlicker, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — screwed up and accused at least four innocent people of being [checks notes] complicit in an international pedophilia ring. (Oops.)
.@RepRoKhanna and @RepThomasMassie 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. https://t.co/9nPAMCU83n
— Todd Blanche (@DAGToddBlanche) February 13, 2026
And that’s where Kirchick’s story began:
Last month, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) held a news conference outside the Justice Department. Co-sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, they had just reviewed a collection of unredacted documents from the FBI’s investigation into the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and were assailing the government for withholding the names of six men who appeared in a collection of mug-shot-style photographs. “There is no reason in our legislation that allows them to redact the names of those men,” Massie declared. If the department would not release the names, the pair said, they would do it themselves.
The following day on the House floor, Khanna made good on that threat, reading the names of “six, wealthy, powerful men” into the congressional record “to hold the Epstein class accountable.”
It took the Guardian three days to discover that four of the men Khanna named had “no ties to Epstein.” A car mechanic from the nation of Georgia, an information technology specialist, the owner of a home improvement store in Queens and a man Massie later admitted to misidentifying who shares a name with an Italian former member of the European Parliament — none of them are “wealthy” and “powerful.” A more accurate description was provided by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who referred to them as “completely random.”
Well, everyone makes mistakes — that’s why pencils have erasers. But when a mistake is made, a responsible politician apologizes to the person he falsely accused of pedophilia(!), learns from it, and doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
Alas, as Kirchick noted, Khanna isn’t a responsible politician:
Rather than apologize to the public he deceived and to the men he smeared, Khanna blamed the Justice Department. Acknowledging that the innocent men “were just part of a photo line up and are not connected to Epstein’s crimes,” Khanna said that the department nonetheless “failed to protect survivors.” Less than two weeks later, having evidently learned nothing, he claimed that the files showed that Epstein had visited CIA headquarters. A Washington Free Beacon report demonstrated that Khanna was likely referencing a photo of Epstein at a Hermès design studio. (When asked for comment, Khanna acknowledged that “the photograph which had online buzz about being at CIA headquarters was apparently at Hermes.”)
Ever since appointing himself chief congressional inquisitor in the Epstein investigation, Khanna has been deceiving the American people with conspiracy theories.
Kirchick also side-eyed Khanna’s sincerity:
Khanna clearly would like people to believe that his ubiquity concerning the Epstein case stems from a sincere interest in human trafficking, a very real problem in which he showed little prior interest. Not once did Khanna tweet about Epstein during Joe Biden’s presidency. He isn’t even a member of the Congressional Human Trafficking Caucus, a nominal affiliation requiring zero commitment.
As for Khanna’s motivation:
Khanna has opportunistically commandeered the Epstein spectacle as a vehicle to advance his career. The California Democrat has been laying the groundwork to run for president in 2028 and, as part of that highly dubious undertaking, he has placed himself front and center on all things Epstein. According to New York magazine, Khanna has spent so much time in New Hampshire that he’s referred to as the state’s “fifth delegate” to Congress. “I get texts from him,” one local Democrat said, “and I barely know him.” In the words of New York writer Ben Terris, “being barely known is probably the thing Khanna is best known for.”
Khanna has apparently decided that exploiting the Epstein scandal, facts and propriety be damned, is the way to remedy that obscurity.
And here’s where Kirchick goes for the jugular: An unknown source gave him oodles of nasty “opposition research” (or something similar) about Ro Khanna — and it paints a damning portrait of a man who’ll say and do ANYTHING to achieve political power:
Some correspondence shared with me from early in his political career provides a window into the mind of a man whose lust for power is unseemly even by Washington standards.
On Jan. 21, 2009, the day after President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, Khanna emailed an aide to Bill Clinton asking the 42nd president to help him get a job working for his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “I would be honored to serve Secretary Clinton and the country in the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Economic Affairs,” he wrote. “Most importantly, I want to be part of her team, and deeply believe she will be President one day.” Khanna boasted of “working with the AJC and AIPAC” — the American Jewish Committee and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — “to build ties between the Indo American and pro-Israel communities.” Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, whom Khanna challenged in 2004, was “a close mentor.”
After a series of emails and phone calls, the aide forwarded Khanna’s job request to his superior, who himself had clearly been on the receiving end of multiple messages from Khanna. “Guy is killing us,” the superior wrote back. “Not happening.”
Then, in late 2014, he pitched himself yet again to the Clintons, describing himself as a Bill and Hillary superfan:
Two weeks after the 2014 election — his second failed campaign for Congress — Khanna sent a handwritten letter to Bill Clinton. “You inspired my passion for public service, and I have always believed you are the greatest political leader of our times,” he gushed, praising the 42nd president’s “third way” philosophy and promotion of the “pragmatic center.” Khanna told Clinton that “it would mean a lot to me to have the chance to meet and to have your counsel and mentorship” and pledged, “You will have, of course, my complete and unconditional support in 2016,” a reference to Hillary Clinton’s highly anticipated presidential campaign. Bill Clinton didn’t respond.
Perhaps he should have. The following December, running for Congress again in the district that includes Silicon Valley, Khanna abruptly switched his support from Clinton to Bernie Sanders. In a campaign during which he took money from venture capitalist and left-wing bogeyman Peter Thiel, Khanna, one of the richest members of Congress, discarded his neoliberal centrist costume and changed into that of a progressive populist. Positioning for the left-wing lane in the 2028 Democratic primary, the man who once waxed sentimentally about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship, boasted of working closely with AIPAC, and described a Holocaust survivor as his “mentor,” now speaks at a convention where panelists joke about the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, trolls the pro-Israel group on Twitter, and libels the Jewish State as perpetrating a “genocide.”
I’m very curious who provided Kirchick with piles of Khanna’s old correspondence. It could’ve come from a disgruntled Khanna staffer or worker.
If you don’t treat your staff well, they won’t stay loyal. With all the incestuous job-hopping in D.C., it’s very possible that one of Khanna’s ex-confidants is now working for AOC, or for fellow Californian presidential wannabes Gavin Newsom and/or Kamala Harris.
But I don’t think that’s it.
Because it’s also possible that Bill and Hillary Clinton — who were just humiliated worldwide (again, I mean) when they were forced to testify to the House Oversight Committee about Jeffrey Epstein — had enough, located Khanna’s emails and letters, and fed ‘em to Kirchick.
To me, the Clinton connection is far and away the most likely explanation.
Kirchick didn’t pull any punches with his conclusion:
It was once easy to dismiss Khanna as just another overly ambitious politician. But his recklessness concerning the Epstein affair — fomenting a moral panic the likes of which this country hasn’t seen since the 1980s child sexual abuse hysteria — crosses a line. Desperate for attention and willing to engage in the lowest forms of demagoguery to achieve it, Khanna once might have been deemed unfit for public office, but these days, there’s no telling how far he could go.
The “lowest forms of demagoguery” is a helluva epitaph. But really, what else can you say about a power-obsessed politician who’ll say anything and do anything to advance his own career?
He’s quite literally exploiting the pain of sex abuse victims for his own benefit. If Khanna is willing to falsely accuse innocent men of complicity in pedophilia, there’s no limit to how low he’ll go.
But there is, I suspect, a limit to how much [censored] the Clintons will take from a shlub like Khanna.
Recommended: The Future of the U.S.-Israeli Relationship: Last Ride With a Good, Loyal Friend
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