During a Senate roll call vote on President Trump's nominees on Saturday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke about the Epstein Files controversy.
00:01The American people have been... Senator, we're in a quorum call. I ask that the
00:05quorum call be lifted. Is there objection? Without objection. Thank you, Mr. President.
00:10The American people have been treated to an extraordinary spectacle. It is the
00:17spectacle of a President of the United States trying to stonewall and stall
00:26the disclosure of a file from the United States Department of Justice that
00:32directly implicates him and others in places of power after boasting to the
00:43American people that he would reveal everything. He promised again and again
00:51and again that he would disclose all the files not only of this
00:56investigation but the JFK investigation and others because the American people
01:02deserve transparency. They deserve disclosure. They deserve to know what is in
01:08the files of the Department of Justice when there are credible allegations that
01:13an investigation is incomplete and potential evidence concealed. And the
01:23American people are rightly asking now, what do they have to hide? Why are they
01:29concealing this information in the files of the Department of Justice? We're talking
01:35about documents, interviews, testimony that may mention the survivors and
01:44innocent people and their name should be redacted and removed from any public
01:48disclosure so that they are not victimized again by the public ignominy of having been victims.
01:58And if there is any ongoing investigation here that requires confidentiality, it can be held. I know from my
02:12my days in the Department of Justice, I was the United States Attorney for Connecticut, that this
02:17kind of disclosure is done, not routinely, not commonly, but in exactly this kind of
02:26instance when the credibility of the Department of Justice may be at stake and
02:31people deserve to know the truth. And here, let's be very blunt, there are questions
02:38there are questions about whether this investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein
02:44and Ghislaine Maxwell was full and complete. There are names, some of them rich and powerful
02:54people. There are stories, some of them believable. There are places and locations, there are testimony.
03:06that describe a situation that may be much broader than just these two individuals who
03:16have been prosecuted. And at the end of the day, we're talking here not about just legalities and about
03:27politics. We're talking about girls, the youngest victims, and some of them survivors. The President
03:39referred to them as beautiful women. On the younger side, some of them, well, some of them were actually not even
03:52women, they were girls. This crime is about the most heinous kind of exploitation of women, predatory
04:06victimization of girls. In effect, trafficking them, which was Maxwell's specialty. And the President has said that
04:20they may have stolen some of them, they may have stolen some of them from his spa as if they were chattel to be bought and sold. But that was the attitude that Epstein and Maxwell had toward them.
04:36And sadly, that was the attitude that perhaps some of their aiders and betters or co-conspirators or simply enablers had as well.
04:46This action about disclosure is necessary now because the administration continues to stonewall and stall concealing information and betraying its promise to the American people.
05:02And what's at stake here is not just the President's promises, although they are absolutely clear when he said, quote,
05:11President Trump says he will declassify the 9-11 files, JFK files, Epstein files, end quote. That's President Trump.
05:20What's at stake here is the credibility of our justice system. That's why an act of Congress is not only appropriate but necessary.
05:29And what's at stake here is also the victim.
05:36This crime involved money laundering. It involved financial illegality.
05:44It involved fraud against the government. It involved a range of crimes that may sound abstract, even technical.
05:53But at the end of the day, it was not a victimless crime. It was about exploiting girls. Young women. Girls.
06:04Girls who were mercilessly and repeatedly subject to abuse and trafficking.
06:10Donald Trump has broken these promises, but he's also remained actively engaged in a cover-up.
06:16That's why he sent his deputy attorney general to interview Maxwell for two days.
06:23Unprecedented. Absolutely mind-boggling to send the deputy attorney general, who may then be a witness and potentially implicated in a cover-up,
06:35to interview a vital witness.
06:42We don't know who was with him, but we have to believe there were notes or recordings.
06:47They ought to be disclosed as well.
06:50And we should require that the disclosure be immediate as this legislation would require.
07:01That deputy attorney general also happens to be the president's personal lawyer, or he was in all his criminal prosecution.
07:08That is unprecedented as well.
07:11The American people deserve an end to this stonewalling and stalling, and that is why, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding Rule 22,
07:22I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Judiciary be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S.2557.
07:31Further, that the bill be considered and read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
