00:00Well, thank you, Chuck. You know, the American people want and deserve transparency from their elected officials.
00:08On the campaign trail, President Trump promised, he promised many times, to deliver that transparency by making the records in the Jeffrey Epstein case public.
00:19And now he is going back on that promise.
00:23This kind of reversal is what leads to distrust of elected officials.
00:27And also, we all know, it breeds conspiracy theories and misinformation.
00:32But the solution is very clear.
00:34Americans deserve transparency from congressional Republicans and the Trump administration.
00:41Our Republican colleagues are failing to conduct independent oversight of the administration and call for this information to be made public.
00:50Some have even publicly said they want to provide.
00:53And this is a member of the U.S. Senate, a Republican member, who said that they wanted to provide, quote, cover.
01:00Republican senators said it.
01:02They want to provide cover to President Trump after his reversal.
01:06And that's why my Homeland Security Committee Democratic colleagues and I are pressing the Justice Department to produce files related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
01:16We are using very unique statutory authority that is granted only to our committee, to Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
01:25The statute that we are invoking requires the administration to hand over documents requested by any five members of the Senate committee.
01:36This letter demands that the Justice Department produce documents that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Akash Patel have publicly already confirmed they have in their possession.
01:48We all know, in fact, that the Attorney General said, quote, she said, they're sitting on her desk.
01:55It should be pretty easy to turn over documents that are sitting on the Attorney General's desk.
02:01It's certainly disappointing that we have to take this action to hold President Trump to his word.
02:06But we believe that providing this transparency is what is best for the American people.
02:11Joining me on that letter and also working in his own right as a ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations as part of my committee is Richard Blumenthal.
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