'There Is A Pattern Here': Sarah McBride Blasts Trump's Epstein 'Cover-Up'

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During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) spoke about files related to Jeffrey Epstein.

Transcript

00:00Thank you sir. Gentleman yields back. Your recognizes Representative McBride.

00:04Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you Under Secretary Hooker for being here today.

00:07I'd like to hone in on Secretary Rubio's decision to decimate the Bureau of

00:12Democracy Human Rights and Labor or DRL. Most USAID programs and all but a

00:18handful of human rights programs have either ended or reportedly have been

00:22transferred to bureaus that lack the experience in this work. You just

00:26mentioned to Representative Jayapal that the reorganization quote-unquote of the

00:30State Department was not haphazard but you also told ranking member Meeks

00:34earlier today as of right now there's no plan for absorbing the work formerly

00:39done but formerly done by DRL into the regional bureaus. You said a plan is

00:43quote in process that does sound like a haphazard reorganization to me. Legal

00:49requirements for reporting to Congress on democracy and human rights programs have

00:53not been relaxed by law yet many of the staff and systems to ensure compliance

00:57are gone. So I want to start Madam Under Secretary how many State Department

01:02staffers and contractors have you all fired that worked in the Bureau of

01:06Democracy Human Rights and Labor? I don't have that number in front of me right

01:10now Congresswoman. So you don't have the number of folks that were in this bureau

01:17that presumably its work and they have been consolidated under your purview under

01:23the bureaus. You don't have a sense of how many remain? From the nature of your

01:29question I think you're interested in understanding whether these functions are

01:33continuing in the in the bureaus and I can assure you that the functions are

01:36continuing in the bureaus whether it's for DRL, PRM, foreign assistance, our CT

01:43functions as well. Those each of those functions are being integrated into the

01:48bureaus of each of the regional bureaus that I am responsible for. Well to to

01:55that point if the work is still being done I want to hone in then on the annual

02:02human rights reports which are of great importance to human rights experts around

02:07the world. But going back to 2017 the latest the latest that the country reports

02:15on human rights practices was published was April 22nd. It's now July 23rd and we

02:22have yet to see this year's report. Can you explain this delay and when we should

02:27expect to see this year's annual required report? Thank you for that interest. I'm

02:33happy to look into it I don't have an answer for you at the moment I'll take that

02:36back happy to report back. Well so it doesn't seem like the work of the Bureau

02:41of democracy human rights and labor is moving forward if they're not releasing

02:46reports in the same timely fashion that they did previously. I want to move on to

02:53to ask on this topic and of course these these bureaus absorbing this work and

02:58and presumably it's in some form or fashion moving forward or they're not

03:02clearly as rigorously as it used to. Since assuming your position how many times

03:08have you convened regional bureaus to assess or discuss a major human rights

03:11challenge or for that matter any human rights issues? I convene the bureaus weekly

03:18to talk about whatever issues they're facing. And have you discussed major human

03:23rights challenges in those meetings? I'm not going to talk about the specifics of our

03:27conversations with each of those regional bureaus. You know I gotta be honest I

03:33appreciate you taking the time but I just don't know what to make of these

03:38actions or quite frankly inactions by the administration. Either this

03:44administration is appallingly indifferent to human rights abuses and human

03:48trafficking as we heard last week in Secretary Regas' testimony or this

03:54administration is trying to cover up and paper over the scale of human rights

03:59abuses and human trafficking around the world and quite frankly given this

04:03administration's efforts to cover up abuses committed by Jeffrey Epstein and

04:06other powerful men it appears that there is a pattern here with this

04:09administration. The powerful get to do what they want whether it's powerful men

04:14here or strong men around the world and this administration will cover for them

04:20and it is deeply disturbing to me and I hope I hope that these regional bureaus under

04:25your leadership because I believe that you personally want to do this work I hope

04:32that this administration will fulfill its legal and moral obligation to report on

04:39to investigate and to hold other countries accountable for human rights abuses and

04:43with that Mr. Chairman I yield back.

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