00:00Okay, thank you for being here everybody and thanks to Senators Durbin and Booker.
00:07We said Senator Klobuchar would come but we had a very constructive meeting in our caucus
00:13and it lasted a good amount of time, I'm glad it did.
00:19But anyway, she couldn't make it.
00:20So today Senate Republicans are moving forward with one of Trump's worst judicial nominees
00:26to date.
00:27And that's saying a lot.
00:29It's Emil Bovey.
00:31Bovey is not just religiously obedient to Trump, but he's proven to be hostile to the rule
00:37of law.
00:40Republicans meanwhile are nowhere to be found with a whisper of scrutiny.
00:45So much, they're so afraid of how bad this guy is, that Senator Durbin will talk about
00:51it and Senator Booker will talk about it, that Senator Grassley, the judiciary chair,
00:57cut off Cory Booker from even speaking at his hearing and a number of people didn't get
01:01to ask questions.
01:02Is that right?
01:03Yes.
01:04They're afraid of the questions.
01:06Bovey's claim to fame is as Trump's personal attorney.
01:12He's made a career of handling Trump's dirty laundry and is hit man at the DOJ.
01:18The only reason this guy is being appointed to this position is he handles Trump's dirty
01:23laundry.
01:24At the DOJ, Bovey weaponized the department to carry out political retributions against
01:33people Trump considered his enemies.
01:35He punished FBI agents investigating the January 6 insurrection and fired prosecutors working
01:42on criminal charges for the January 6 rioters against trying to free up these rioters.
01:49It's appalling.
01:51He reportedly told DOJ lawyers to ignore court orders and even deliberately mislead judges.
01:57That's right.
01:58Bovey, a man seeking to be a circuit court judge, reportedly told DOJ lawyers to mislead judges.
02:07In the long history of our republic, things like this haven't happened.
02:12It's incredible.
02:14And what is the Republican response when in the past Republicans wouldn't have even let
02:19this guy come forward in the Reagan days and Bush days?
02:23Just rush him through the process.
02:26Trump wants him.
02:27He's Trump's lapdog.
02:28Yes, sir.
02:29We'll vote for him, they say.
02:31It's no wonder over 75 bipartisan former state and federal judges joined together to oppose
02:38Bovey's nomination.
02:40He's the extreme of the extreme.
02:43He's not a jurist.
02:44He's a Trumpian henchman.
02:46That seems to be the qualification for appointees these days.
02:50It's clear Bovey holds deep hostility against the very bench he's being considered for.
02:56Senate Dems will strongly oppose his nomination.
03:00Also this afternoon, as Senate Republicans spend time jamming through Trump's henchmen and
03:06House Republicans seek to get out of town to stop the bleeding in their caucus by the
03:12Epstein file's hypocrisy and cover-up, I will be meeting with Leader Jeffries and immediately
03:17following that meeting will be meeting with Senators Murray and DeLauro and other Senate
03:21and House Democrats.
03:23Hakeem and I will be meeting to discuss the appropriations process in both the House and
03:28the Senate in the weeks ahead.
03:30With so much hard work ahead and a government funding deadline only less than 25 legislative
03:36days away, Republicans should be focused on working with us to deliver for American families.
03:43Instead, both Republican caucuses are simply focused on doing Trump's dirty work.
03:51Rushing through one of his henchmen to be a circuit court judge and rushing to get out of town to avoid
03:58taking questions on Epstein when both Republicans in the House and Senate should be working with us on
04:04appropriations.
04:05But they're running home or focusing on putting one of the worst judges that we've ever had nominated.
04:11It's time for Republicans to get their act together.
04:14Senator Durbin.
04:19Two weeks after the Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as Attorney General, she told Fox News the list of Jeffrey Epstein's
04:26clients was, quote, sitting on my desk right now to review, end of quote.
04:33Six days later, Bondi released binders of documents related to Epstein to MAGA influencers.
04:40But the documents she released were already publicly available.
04:45The absence of any client list led to a predictable, immense blowback.
04:50Attorney General Bondi then returned to Fox News, the mothership, and made another startling claim.
04:56That a whistleblower told her that the FBI withheld thousands of pages of documents,
05:03and then she promised the country would see the, quote, full Epstein files.
05:08Yet, over the next four months, DOJ and FBI were silent on this issue until an unsigned July 7 memorandum was issued,
05:17finding that, quote, systemic review revealed no incriminating client list.
05:24So what happened during the four months between Attorney General Bondi's sweeping claims in February and this July 7 memorandum?
05:32Our Judiciary Committee learned the embarrassing truth.
05:36We were contacted by a highly credible whistleblower describing Attorney General's pressure on FBI to quickly review and produce more Epstein documents as promised.
05:49For two weeks, for two weeks in late March, the FBI assigned approximately 1,000 personnel in its information management division
06:00and hundreds of additional agents from the New York field office to work 24-hour shifts to review and produce more Epstein documents.
06:10These officials were told to, quote, flag any records in which President Trump was mentioned.
06:17Essentially, agents were pulled out of their field from their work combating narcotics and violent crime to review this mountain of documents.
06:26Other important FBI work was effectively shut down, according to the whistleblower.
06:31Using tens of thousands of personnel hours at the expense of public safety for no other reason than to try to bolster baseless claims you've made is unconscionably reckless.
06:43President Trump has not helped the situation.
06:47Despite his administration continually making promises about transparency on Epstein and the existence of records that they have not produced,
06:56he is currently telling the country that it is all a, quote, scam, unquote.
07:02Last week, President Trump posted on his personal social media site, and I quote,
07:08my past supporters have bought into this BS hook, line, and sinker.
07:13They haven't learned their lesson and probably never will, unquote from President Trump.
07:19This is the way the president is talking about his own constituents who are raising concerns about the very claim President Trump's campaign surrogates and administration officials have repeatedly raised.
07:32President Trump and Attorney General Bondi are directly responsible for the confusion and mistrust around Epstein's prosecution.
07:40Attorney General Bondi, in particular, owes both Congress and the American people the truth about Jeffrey Epstein, the whole truth and nothing less.
07:57Thank you very much, Chuck. I appreciate that.
08:01As we say in New Jersey, New York has our back.
08:06Far away.
08:08The Empire State Building is ours, by the way.
08:12Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island.
08:16Look, I think it should be really apparent right now that the House of Representatives is running out of town.
08:22They're running out of town because it's clear the speaker believes that their membership in the Republican caucus over there is so fragile
08:31that they cannot withstand simple debate, discussion about the topic of Jeffrey Epstein.
08:39That this is so patently a hill of lies upon which the Justice Department and House Republicans are trying to hide behind that they can't stand to have debate and discussion about it.
08:51So they're canceling their plans and running out for a summer recess.
08:57That should tell voters something.
08:59Senator Durbin said it plain that we are now in a nation where we had our highest law enforcement official say plainly that there is a client list and a truckload of evidence that they were going to release.
09:17It's on my desk indicating that there was something substantive that was going to expose criminal behavior.
09:27And now, months later, they're saying nothing to see there.
09:33It is clear that one of those statements is not true.
09:39And so, therefore, someone has lied to the American people.
09:45And what the House of Representatives seems to be so afraid of is to answer that question.
09:51When was the lie told?
09:54And that somehow is so difficult to endure that question that they are running out of town.
10:01Part of that was the reason why they tried to jam us in the Judiciary Committee.
10:07Because Emil Bovey was one of the principal top justice official people that was there during this time.
10:20He can answer those questions.
10:23He could give transparency and accountability for what his role was in this clear cover-up of what the truth is.
10:35We are seeing a pattern here.
10:39That we have a Republican Party so fragile, so submissive to Donald Trump, that they are now undercutting our constitutional role of advise and consent on a Third Circuit judge.
10:53Underfinding our constitutional role to provide a check and balance on the executive.
10:59Undermining our constitutional role in Congress to hold the executive accountable.
11:07Imagine if this was the Justice Department under Obama.
11:17What were the House Republicans being saying?
11:21We have seen what they have done on just some hint or whiff on other issues.
11:27That they hold countless hearings over and over and over again.
11:33Dear God, I can't hear the words, her emails, without remembering those things.
11:37The hypocrisy of the Republican Congress right now that they are refusing to do their job.
11:46They are so under the thrall of this president that they're undermining the design of our republic.
11:54And our constitutional intent that our branch of government is a co-equal, independent branch.
12:02No, they are turning us into a submissive branch that does the willing, that carries out whatever their dear leader says.
12:13Bovee is part of this.
12:16He knows what happened in the Justice Department.
12:20He should answer for that.
12:22And frankly, when it comes to everything from January 6th to the whistleblowers that are coming forward to put someone on the bench
12:31that has shown such disrespect for the rule of law, for the ideas of justice, they are not worthy for that position.
12:40Why are the Republicans so afraid of the truth?
12:45Why are they so afraid to stand up and hold this administration accountable for their lives?
12:53And the responsibility for them has to do withesis's intention
12:55that the Republicans are trying to do him on the basis.
13:00Questions.
13:18undoes this. And I said this about Senator Thune on the floor today. You can't say you
13:23want a bipartisan process, which he said yesterday, and at the same time put rescissions on the
13:28floor, which is the antithesis of bipartisan. Yes. Go ahead.
13:32What do you make of President Trump's comments saying that he wants to put Obama on trial
13:38for treason? Despicable. Trump so demeans the debate in this country and this country by
13:48what he says. And people should just reject him. I don't care what your philosophy is,
13:53Democrat, Republican, Independent. When he says something like that, it should be universally
13:56condemned. Imagine how Trump would react if someone said it about him. He'd go nuts.
14:01Go ahead, Burgess. Will Democrats vote to advance this appropriations bill today?
14:05Look, let me just talk about this appropriations bill. First, it was done in a bipartisan process,
14:10no question about it. Second, it undoes many of the awful doge cuts to veterans. And third,
14:19we'll have an amendment process after. This is just a motion to proceed and we look forward
14:23to the amendment process. Given that you're all demanding the release of the Epstein files,
14:28why weren't Democrats calling for them the release of these files when Biden was president
14:32and when you were in the majority? I did in 2019. Not nearly as local as you are now.
14:37Please, that's not true. Absolutely not true. Thank you, everybody.
