BREAKING: Jake Tapper Grills Markwayne Mullin As Pressure Builds On Trump To Release Epstein Files

Forbes Breaking News

On Sunday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) spoke to CNN's Jake Tapper about the Epstein Files.

Transcript

00:00Something you said on the Senate floor a couple of days ago gained a lot of attention.

00:05You were arguing against a push by Democrats who were calling to release the Epstein files in full.

00:12Let's play what you said.

00:14I'm sure this would be handled just like any other thing,

00:17that they've tried to go after, like, the baseless impeachments

00:22or the unbelievable amount of charges they've tried to file against the president.

00:27I'm sure this would be handled the exact same way.

00:30What we're simply wanting to do here is give them cover.

00:35Can you explain what you meant when you talked about giving cover there?

00:41Well, Jake, what you're doing is you're taking a 30-second clip from about a six-minute debate.

00:47And, by the way, we also put forth a resolution to allow the judges to release the information from these grand juries.

00:56So this is political theater.

00:57If you listen to the whole debate, you would clearly understand what we had been talking about

01:02was Pam Bondi and the president and Congress wants transparency.

01:08We want them to release the files.

01:10However, we can't make them release it because of separation of power.

01:14The judges, the judicial branch, have the files and they have the documents.

01:19Every document that Pam Bondi has, every document that Kash Patel has, they have been heard by a grand jury.

01:25We saw the judge in Florida say, no, she's not releasing it.

01:29We're waiting on the judges in New York to say, are you going to release it or do you not?

01:33But we all want transparency.

01:35And what's funny about this is the Democrats want it too.

01:38But when I put forth my resolution calling on them to do the same thing,

01:42which is what I was meaning by that term,

01:45is that we're trying to agree with Pam Bondi and with President Trump

01:49that we want transparency, we want the files released.

01:52But when I put my resolution forth, guess what?

01:54The Democrats also denied or denied the request.

01:59So it's interesting to me, though, Jake, that for the last four years underneath President Biden,

02:04not one Democrat asked for the files to be released.

02:07Now they're all about transparency.

02:08But yet President Trump is the most transparent president we've had.

02:12I mean, look, you wrote the book literally on the biggest cover-up from the Biden administration,

02:17the cover-up that the previous administration covered completely for President Biden the whole time he was in office.

02:22So transparency is what we're all about.

02:26But the Democrats are trying to distract from their awful record

02:29and from the questions they need to ask, like who was signing the executive orders as an auto-pin?

02:34Who was actually choosing to continue to run the Russian gate when we know it was a huge hoax?

02:41Who was making the decisions at the White House?

02:43And they can't answer that.

02:45So they're deciding to run a distraction by this Epstein file when it's a big hoax

02:49and the American people know it because they never said a word about it when Biden was in office.

02:53But let's just take a step back here.

02:55The reason that we're here where we are is because for years,

03:00President Trump and the MAGA base and Trump's allies have been calling for the release of the Epstein files.

03:05And then after taking office, take a listen to what Attorney General Pam Bondi has been saying

03:12over the course of the past few months.

03:14Take a listen.

03:16What you're going to see hopefully tomorrow is a lot of flight logs, a lot of names.

03:23Everything's going to come out to the public.

03:25The public has a right to know.

03:27Americans have a right to know.

03:28There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children.

03:36Now the administration is saying they can't release this information.

03:39Now I understand you're talking about a resolution you offered calling for the grand jury to release

03:45transcripts from the grand jury investigation into Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

03:50And a judge said no.

03:51But there's troves of information that the administration could release tomorrow if they wanted to.

03:57And they've been promising to.

03:59And they haven't.

04:01Well, Jake, that's not true.

04:03You know better than that, too, because you know every piece of file that they have,

04:08every video, every document, every flight log has all been heard by a grand jury.

04:14They've all been seen by a grand jury.

04:16And we want the judges to release it.

04:18Pam Bondi has called on the judges to release it.

04:20Trump has called on them to release it.

04:23And the Congress has called on them to release it.

04:25But we can't, because there is a true co-equal branches of government.

04:29So we can't force a judicial branch to do anything.

04:32All we can do is ask them to do it.

04:34We assume that the judges would release it.

04:36Pam Bondi released it.

04:36I'm not talking about the grand jury stuff.

04:38No, there isn't, Jake, there isn't one piece of document that Cash Patel at the FBI

04:44or Pam Bondi in her office has that a grand jury hasn't seen.

04:49So everything that they have would have to be released by the judges.

04:53She was talking about releasing this information.

04:55She could release it tomorrow.

04:56She doesn't.

04:57She was, but she can't, no, she can't release it until the judges release it.

05:02Because if it's been heard by a grand jury, and Jake, you know this, if it's been heard

05:06by a grand jury, regardless if Pam Bondi has it or the FBI has it, the judge that overseen

05:12the case that the grand jury listened to and saw the documentation and the evidence has

05:17to be released by the judge.

05:19And you know that.

05:19I don't think that that's correct.

05:21I think that the FBI and the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Florida.

05:26And because, just because something has been shown before a grand jury, that doesn't mean

05:30it is only going to be, it can only be released to the public by a judge.

05:35If the FBI has it, they can release it.

05:38Then why did the judge refuse to release the records in Florida?

05:43Because once it's been heard in a case, it is a sealed case.

05:46It is sealed by the grand jury.

05:48And you have been through this.

05:50I don't know why we're even debating this.

05:51Because if it is considered evidence in a case, then it is sealed.

05:56The information that has been released.

05:58Bring a separate judge on and ask them the same question.

06:01Grand jury hearings and transcripts, the judge has control over.

06:07Absolutely.

06:08That doesn't mean that everything that went into the grand jury is therefore locked from

06:16the public.

06:16It does not work that way.

06:18And that's why Attorney General Bondi was saying for a month, well, then tell me why

06:22for a month she was saying that she's going to release the information tomorrow.

06:27We made the assumption that the judges would release the order and allow the evidence that

06:31they had that it could be heard.

06:34But it's all been sealed.

06:36And so if it's been a sealed case, we can't release it until the judges allow us to release

06:41it.

06:41And you would think common sense would play.

06:43That's why they asked for transparency.

06:45We want transparency.

06:46We want the judges to have transparency in this, too.

06:48But remember, there was a plea deal that was struck in 2009, way before I was in office,

06:54way before Trump was even considering to be in office, way before Pam Bonney was office,

06:57way before Cash Patel was director, 2009, there was a sweetheart plea deal that was made

07:03underneath the Obama administration with Epstein.

07:06That's not right.

07:06And that sweetheart has not been exposed.

07:08It was 2000.

07:09I was not?

07:09Well, when was the case heard?

07:11It was 2008.

07:13It was the U.S. attorney at the time was a guy named Alex Acosta.

07:18He was a Bush appointee.

07:19He went on to become President Trump's secretary of labor.

07:23It all took place in 2008.

07:25Who was in office at the time?

07:262008.

07:27George W. Bush was in office at the time.

07:29George W. Bush.

07:30No, 2009 is when the case came out and Obama was in office at the time.

07:35It's not true.

07:36But let me ask you a question.

07:37Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch met this week with Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell,

07:42who is serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.

07:46After the meeting, Maxwell's attorney indicated to reporters that he hopes President Trump

07:51will give her a pardon.

07:52What do you think of that idea?

07:54Will it be a mistake for President Trump to pardon Maxwell?

07:57And do you think that she's credible?

08:02I don't know enough about Maxwell or the conversation.

08:06They even weigh in on that.

08:08But I'll go back to what you're saying, but it wasn't true.

08:11The case was sealed in 2009.

08:13That's absolutely true.

08:14It was heard in 2008.

08:16It was sealed in 2009.

08:17The point is that the sweetheart deal, which was completed in 2008, was under the Bush administration,

08:25U.S.

08:26Attorney Alex Acosta.

08:27That's why Alex Acosta resigned in the first Bush administration, because the Miami Herald

08:33had written this story in 2018 about how Epstein got away with so much.

08:39And then in 2019, the U.S. attorney under President Trump, Jeff Berman, in the Southern District

08:45of New York, then brought charges against him.

08:48So, I mean, there is stuff to say that you could point to that say, like, President Trump

08:51did this or President Trump did that.

08:53And remember, in 2019, President Trump and his administration called for it to be unsealed

08:58at that time, too.

08:59It went silent, and not a word was said during the Biden administration.

09:03Not a word.

09:03Nothing was said during the Biden administration.

09:05People can look it up.

09:06The sweetheart deal was 2008 during the George W. Bush administration.

09:10But I always appreciate your coming on the show.

09:13Senator Mullen, thanks for joining us.

09:14Yeah.

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