(José Niño, Headline USA) Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman stated the Epstein files have reached a McCarthyism era stage where innocent people face slander, calling for methods to distinguish evildoers from those merely appearing in documents, according to social media posts around February 21 to 22.
On January 30, 2026, the Justice Department released over three million pages of documents related to its Jeffrey Epstein investigation under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. On February 15, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent Congress a letter declaring the release complete, including a list of roughly 300 politically exposed persons whose names appear somewhere in the records.
The release triggered a massive wave of professional consequences for people named in the files. NPR reported that Kathy Ruemmler, Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer and former Obama White House counsel, resigned after email correspondence with Epstein surfaced. According to a report by Politico, Brad Karp stepped down as chairman of law firm Paul Weiss. The Los Angeles Times reported that Casey Wasserman, chair of the LA 2028 Olympics committee, announced he was selling his talent agency after his name appeared.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick faced bipartisan calls to resign over emails showing he considered visiting Epstein’s island in 2012,
Ackman posted on X that “The Epstein Files have reached the McCarthy-era stage where innocent people are being slandered” and called for a way to “distinguish between evildoers and those who” merely appear in documents without wrongdoing.
Th Epstein Files have reached the McCarthy-era stage where innocent people are being slandered. We need to distinguish between evildoers and those who ‘appear’ in the Epstein files, but have done nothing wrong.
I am hearing of totally innocent people being forced to resign from… https://t.co/P94ALhGtnt
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) February 21, 2026
Critics quickly noted Ackman has a personal stake in this argument. His wife, Neri Oxman, is a former MIT Media Lab researcher whose lab received over $100,000 in donations from Epstein. In 2019, Ackman emailed Joi Ito, then the director of MIT’s Media Lab, urging him not to involve Oxman in the growing Epstein scandal: “It is very important that you don’t mention Neri’s name or otherwise get her involved … I don’t want to see her forced into a position where to protect her name she is required to be transparent about everything that took place at MIT with Epstein.”
Oxman’s name appeared again in the 2026 document release as an MIT affiliate with Epstein ties, according to a report by Axios.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
