Did congressman ro khanna state that there are 13,000 mentions of trump in the Epstein files
Executive summary
There is no evidence in the available reporting that Representative Ro Khanna said “there are 13,000 mentions of Trump in the Epstein files”; Khanna’s public statements about the DOJ release call it a “bombshell,” criticize redactions and demand more transparency, but do not include a 13,000-mentions figure [1] [2] [3].
1. What Khanna actually said about the DOJ’s Epstein release
Khanna’s official statement characterized the newly released documents as “a bombshell,” highlighted an email referencing “10 co-conspirators,” flagged new information about Trump flying on Epstein’s plane, and accused the Justice Department of obstructing the law by withholding or heavily redacting materials — he urged release of FBI witness interviews and other records so “the public can know who was involved” [1] [2] [3].
2. Where reporting documents Khanna’s arguments and actions
Multiple outlets that covered the DOJ drop and Khanna’s response describe him pressing for full disclosure and legislative oversight: his office publicized the statement and he joined Rep. Thomas Massie in threatening contempt and calling for a special master or other remedies to compel fuller releases, as reporters at NBC, PBS and The Atlantic recorded [1] [2] [4].
3. The claim about “13,000 mentions” and the evidence gap
A careful read of the sourced coverage supplied — including Khanna’s press release and contemporaneous reporting by PBS, NBC, The Atlantic, Fox News and CNBC — reveals no occurrence of Khanna asserting that the files mention Trump 13,000 times; the factual claims attributed to Khanna in those pieces instead focus on specific emails, flight logs and redactions, not a 13,000-mention statistic [1] [3] [2] [5] [6].
4. How the DOJ and other outlets framed mentions of Trump in the files
The Justice Department and reporting emphasized that the released cache contained references to Trump — including prosecutor notes that Epstein’s plane carried Trump on some flights — but the DOJ also warned that some material included unverified or false claims about Trump and removed or corrected certain items after scrutiny, which suggests caution in treating raw counts or sensational summaries without document-level verification [5] [6] [4].
5. Why the 13,000‑mention number matters and how it could arise
A headline number like “13,000 mentions” would be consequential if accurate, but none of the official statements or mainstream reports in the record attribute such a number to Khanna; large figure claims can emerge from media aggregation, social amplification, or misread document indexes, and verifying them requires direct citation of the DOJ’s searchable release or a credible forensic accounting of the files — material not present in the provided sources [4] [6].
6. Alternative explanations and limits of the available reporting
It remains possible that someone else — a commentator, a social post, or a secondary outlet — circulated the “13,000 mentions” claim, but the materials supplied here do not show Khanna making that claim; reporting explicitly records his focus on emails, flight records and objections to redactions rather than a numerical tally [1] [2] [3]. The corpus provided does not include every public utterance or social-media post, so this analysis is limited to the cited sources.
7. Bottom line
Based on the available, cited reporting, Representative Ro Khanna did not state that there are “13,000 mentions of Trump in the Epstein files”; his documented public remarks call for transparency and point to specific document revelations and redactions, but they stop short of asserting a 13,000‑mention figure in the sources reviewed [1] [2] [3].