It's getting hard to keep track of how many times Rep. Ro Khanna has publicly embarrassed himself. First there was his decision to endorse the California Wealth tax on billionaires. So far that has led several of the wealthiest people in the country to flee California for Florida and other states. And it has resulted in Khanna facing a primary challenger in his Silicon Valley district.
Next, there was the embarrassing incident where Khanna decided to show how committed he was to outing bad people mentioned in the Epstein files only to find out that four of the six he named on the House floor were nobodies who'd never met Epstein.
A spokesperson from the office of Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, told the Guardian the file was a photo lineup used for investigative purposes by the SDNY.
“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,” the spokesperson told the Guardian.
Had Rep. Khanna made these insinuations anywhere but the House floor, he'd be getting sued right now and he'd almost certainly lose in court. Rather than take responsibility for that blunder, he blamed it on the DOJ for not telling him the names were part of a lineup.
The next story is one I missed but it fits the same pattern wherein Khanna seems to speak before he thinks. At the end of last month, Khanna appeared on a You Tube show where he revealed that Jeffrey Epstein had been photographed visiting the CIA.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) said in an interview released Monday that he is "so careful" not to spread "conspiracy theories" about Jeffrey Epstein. He then claimed that Epstein visited CIA headquarters...
Khanna made the claim and other unsubstantiated allegations in an interview with the left-wing YouTube host Andrew Callaghan.
Here's the photo:
A photo of Jeffrey Epstein taken at CIA headquarters.#EpsteinFiles pic.twitter.com/KOCDC00Z5L
— Anonymous🏴 (@Parrattarna) February 1, 2026
Just one problem with that claim. The picture actually shows Epstein at the headquarters for luxury brand Hermès:
The photo Khanna appeared to be referencing, and which Callaghan flashed on screen as Khanna spoke, shows Epstein with an unidentified woman in a large room. The purported evidence that the photograph does in fact show Epstein at the CIA is the appearance of gray bins in the background emblazoned with the acronym "CIA."
Epstein, who killed himself in jail in August 2019, visited Hermès's headquarters in 2013 and 2014, according to emails released by the Justice Department. A photo of Epstein's 2013 Hermès visit, in which he met the company's CEO while on a tour with filmmaker Woody Allen, shows Epstein wearing the same sweater as in the photo seemingly referenced by Khanna. In the lower-right-hand corner of the photo is a gray bin with "CIA" written on it. It is unclear what the letters denote, but in the world of high-end luxury design, "CIA" is an acronym associated with the quality-control process—"control inspection assemblage"—that is used by many design houses.
A 2024 Vogue video showing a tour of a Hermès design studio in Paris also shows matching gray bins with "CIA" printed on them.
So Rep. Khanna got this wrong, probably because he saw someone on line making the claim and just did zero fact-checking before he spread it on You Tube. Here's the cringe admission he gave to James Kirchick at the Washington Post:
When asked for comment, Khanna acknowledged that “the photograph which had online buzz about being at CIA headquarters was apparently at Hermes.”
Kirchner's piece goes on to explain why Khanna has become a one-man gaffe factory. He's running for president.
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.
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.
This isn't the first time Rep. Khanna's ambition has led to a complete change in his personality. Just a few years ago he was looking for a job with Hillary Clinton and raving about how Bill Clinton was his main inspiration in public life.
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.”
In short, Khanna says whatever he thinks will get him the next job he wants. A decade ago that was praising Bill and Hillary and centrist politics. Now it's acting like the California Mamdani and teaming up with Bernie Sanders. If by some miracle California to a sudden right turn, he'd probably turn up in a MAGA hat a few months later.
Unfortunately, Rep. Khanna's ambition seems to often overwhelm his sense. He knows what his audience of far-left Democrats want to hear but he can't be bothered to spend any time checking the facts. So expect more cringe-inducing moments to come.
