Dick Durbin Reads Off Bondi's Many Statements Claiming There Are Epstein Files, Demands Release

Forbes Breaking News

At today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) demanded answers about the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Chairman, the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case is

00:05baffling, it's frustrating the American people, and it's exacerbating the

00:10mistrust in the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

00:15In February, Attorney General Bondi, 17 days into the job, said in a Fox News

00:23interview that the Epstein client list was quote, sitting on my desk right now

00:29to review, end of quote. The White House then staged a major media release of

00:36Epstein-related files on February 27th, including preparing binders for

00:41conservative influencers and commentators. However, the files released were largely

00:46already publicly available. There was nothing new. After intense blowback,

00:52Attorney General Bondi went back to Fox News, the mothership, and claimed that a

00:57whistleblower quote assured her there were more, there were more files, and that

01:02quote, New York Southern District of New York was sitting on thousands of pages of

01:08documents, and she promised on Fox, and I quote, we will get everything, and the

01:14country will see quote, the full Epstein files. These are quotes from Attorney General

01:20Bondi voluntarily appearing on Fox News to explain the situation. For the next four

01:27months, the Department of Justice and the FBI were silent. What happened during that

01:33period? Well, we received information that Attorney General Bondi pressured the FBI

01:38to assign, now get this, approximately 1,000 agents in its Information Management

01:45Division, and hundreds of additional agents from the New York Field Office to

01:50work 24-hour shifts to review and produce more documents on Epstein on an

01:56arbitrarily short deadline. These officials were told to quote, flag any

02:03records in which President Trump was mentioned. But after this flurry of activity

02:08using tens of thousands of personnel hours in March, it took DOJ and FBI three

02:14additional months to produce no new documents, but rather an unsigned

02:20memorandum on July 7th finding that quote, this systemic review revealed no

02:24incriminating client list. Naturally, after all of the public promises Attorney

02:30General Bondi has made, the public is really suspicious of her finding. This

02:35suspicion has been exacerbated by public reporting that FBI Director Patel and FBI

02:41Deputy Director Bongino disagree with Attorney General Bondi's handling of this

02:46matter. Public mistrust has been fed by other claims in the July 7th memorandum.

02:52This memorandum included links to surveillance video footage from outside

02:57Epstein's cell in the hours leading up to his death. The July 7th memorandum

03:04describes one of the videos released as full raw footage, yet experts who analyzed it

03:10concluded the video was likely modified. The Trump administration has essentially

03:15created a new controversy rather than solving one. President Trump is not

03:21helping matters at all. Despite his administration continuing making promises

03:26about the transparency on Jeffrey Epstein and claims about the existence of

03:31records that have not been produced, he is currently telling the country the

03:35president is saying this is all, quote, a scam, close quote. Yesterday, President Trump

03:41posted on his personal social media site, and I quote, my past supporters have

03:46brought in, have bought into this BS hook, line and sinker. They haven't learned their

03:52lesson and they probably never will. That's from the president's personal social

03:56media. This is the president talking about his own constituents who are concerned

04:02about claims, his own campaign surrogates and administration have continually raised.

04:07President Trump and Attorney General Bundy are directly responsible for all this confusion

04:12and mistrust, and they need to be fully transparent and they should release all of

04:18the documents for the public to review as quickly as possible.

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