Ro Khanna Tests a New Democratic Populism: Erika D. Smith

Ask Representative Ro Khanna of California why he has been so determined to stand up for the survivors of disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and he’ll tell you that it’s personal — and emotional.

“People [were] in my office in tears,” he recently explained to Bloomberg News, “reliving their trauma.”

Increasingly, though, it’s also becoming political. In the months since Khanna and his Republican colleague, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, no Democrat has benefited more from taking on a Trump administration desperate to make the Epstein case go away.

Khanna, who ...