00:00Todd Blanche was on Meet the Press before me.
00:02I almost spit out my coffee when I heard him say that the Justice Department would not be independent of
00:07the White House.
00:08Blanche said, well, the president runs the executive branch.
00:11Look, this isn't complicated.
00:13Obviously, the president can set policy, but the president should have no say in who to charge or criminal investigations.
00:21This has been the consensus in this country since Watergate.
00:25Donald Trump and Todd Blanche are going back to pre-Watergate days.
00:29Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Congressman Massey and I went to the Department of Justice to read the unredacted Epstein files.
00:37We spent about two hours there, and we learned that 70 to 80 percent of the files are still redacted.
00:47In fact, there were six wealthy, powerful men that the DOJ hid for no apparent reason
00:54When Congressman Massey and I pointed this out to the Department of Justice, they acknowledged their mistake.
01:02And now they have revealed the identity of these six powerful men.
01:06These men are Salvatore Navora, Zorab Mikuladz, Leopig Leonor, Nikola Kaputa, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayam, CEO of Dubai Ports World,
01:22and billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner, who was labeled as a co-conspirator by the FBI.
01:29Now, my question is, why did it take Thomas Massey and me going to the Justice Department
01:35to get these six men's identities to become public?
01:39And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours,
01:44imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files.
01:49But the story gets worse.
01:51The reality is that Donald Trump's FBI scrubbed these files in March,
01:59long before Thomas Massey and I passed the Epstein Transparency Act.
02:03Thank you, Mr.
02:03Now, my bill is clear.
02:05The Epstein Transparency Act requires them to unredact those FBI files.
02:10And yet the Justice Department said to me and to Congressman Massey,
02:14we just uploaded whatever the FBI sent us.
02:18And guess what?
02:19The FBI sent scrubbed files.
02:22That means the survivor's statement to the FBI,
02:26naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein's Island,
02:29who went to his ranch, who went to his home and raped and abused underage girls
02:35or saw underage girls being paraded, they're all hidden.
02:38They're all redacted.
02:40It's a little bit of a force.
02:41They're inviting all the members of Congress to go to see the Department of Justice
02:46quote-unquote unredacted files.
02:47But they've got all redacted files from the FBI.
02:51And it's not the fault of the Justice Department attorneys.
02:55They were just told upload things that Donald Trump's FBI had already scrubbed.
03:01It's a blatant violation of the Epstein Transparency Act.
03:05But it also asks a fundamental question.
03:08Who are they protecting?
03:10Why are they protecting these rich and powerful men,
03:14people I call part of the Epstein class?
03:17Why are we in a country where there is no elite accountability
03:21for people who do the most heinous things?
03:24You have in England the king now calling for an investigation
03:31and possible prosecution of his own brother.
03:33You have in Norway the princess who no longer has support to be the queen.
03:40And yet in the United States of America, we have someone in the cabinet,
03:44Howard Lutnick, who is all over these Epstein files,
03:48who allegedly had business with Epstein after he was convicted of pedophilia,
03:53and he still is in the cabinet.
03:55We need to ask ourselves, are we in America going to have elite accountability?
04:02Are we going to call on rich and powerful people who broke the law
04:06or are cavorted with a pedophile, a convicted pedophile?
04:10Are we going to call them to account?
04:12Are we going to have prosecutions for billionaires who went to this island
04:16and either raped underage girls or saw underage girls being raped
04:22and didn't say anything?
04:24Are we going to have investigations?
04:26I'll tell you what this is about.
04:28It's not just about the 1,200 survivors.
04:33It's about two tiers of justice in America.
04:36It's about people who can accumulate wealth and power
04:41and don't have to care about the rest of America.
04:45They have destroyed so much of this country.
04:49Income inequality is at a 60-year high.
04:52Workers' salaries are less than they have been for 75 years as a part of GDP.
05:00Somehow, this country seems to be working for the rich and powerful,
05:04but it's not working for ordinary working-class Americans.
05:08I say enough.
05:10It's time to begin with accountability for the Epstein class.
05:15Hold them in front of Congress,
05:17those people who visited the island or did business with Epstein
05:20after he was a convicted pedophile.
05:23Investigate them.
05:24Prosecute them.
05:25And let's return to democratic accountability in the United States of America.
05:31Let's return to one system of justice in the United States of America.
05:35Let's return to a place where every American has a stake in this country.
