At Tuesday's House Rules Committee hearing, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) defended the Trump Administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases.
00:00Mr. Roy, I'm going to recognize you then, Ms. Houch, and then Mr. Langworth.
00:06I thank the chairwoman.
00:10Chair McComber, is it not true that it was the Trump administration in July of 2019 that arrested and indicted and went after Epstein?
00:22That's true.
00:22Chair McComber, is it not true that it was the Trump administration in 2020 that arrested and went after Maxwell?
00:32True.
00:33And in fairness, that then proceeded into the Biden administration for the ultimate conviction, correct?
00:38Right, correct.
00:39So that was proceeding, so the Department of Justice had a lot of these materials for both of those two prosecutions, correct?
00:47Correct.
00:48And so, well into the Biden administration, they were prosecuting Maxwell, correct?
00:53Correct.
00:54And so, they would have had access to a lot of information.
00:58100%.
00:58And didn't do anything to pursue our current president.
01:04Nothing.
01:04Didn't do anything to go pursue any other potential criminals that they might want to go indict.
01:10Didn't do anything material to have legislators in this body or Democratic colleagues offer any resolutions or any legislation.
01:19Is that true?
01:20That is true.
01:21Okay.
01:21So, would you not agree with me that this is entirely political?
01:25It's 100%.
01:26Because at the end of the day, we all have the same purposes stated by, and I would assume that the ranking member has stated that his purpose, ranking member Garcia, would you agree, to seek the truth wherever it may lead?
01:40That's what I've heard you say, effectively.
01:42Absolutely.
01:42Right?
01:43And wherever that may lead in terms of who that might land on.
01:45And I don't think there's anybody in this room or anybody affiliated with any of this in the Congress that doesn't want to pursue justice here and that aren't horrified by the events and by everything surrounding this whole affair.
01:59Would you both gentlemen agree?
02:00Yes.
02:01Yes.
02:01And so, I think, for me, there's a fundamental question.
02:05I applaud the purpose of the Massey bill and Mr. Khanna.
02:13But would the chairman elaborate to the extent he hasn't already?
02:17Aren't there concerns mechanically with the bill as it relates to the potential unmasking of individuals?
02:25Yes.
02:26As it relates to particular reference to statutes?
02:29And do we not also believe that, is it not your belief as chairman of the committee, that you are essentially pursuing all that that bill's intent would be to pursue?
02:41Would you agree?
02:42I agree.
02:43And something else, the Massey and Khanna resolution doesn't have anything pertaining to financial records.
02:53Right.
02:54Even the victims' attorneys today quoted something I said on a TV interview, follow the money.
03:01And where we intend on going with the advice for the counsel of the victims today, which we had already planned on this, but we're definitely moving in that direction,
03:16is to go after the bank records and the suspicious activity reports, much like we did in the Biden family influence penalty investigation, identify accounts and see what the –
03:28usually the banks catch, Ralph and Langworthy and Byron and everybody that's been involved in banking.
03:35And they know the banks are usually on top of any type of suspicious activity like that.
03:42So we're going to go that route.
03:44That's not addressed in the Massey-Khana.
03:47They're only talking about the Epstein document.
03:49There are people to bring in and depose, which we're already in the process of doing, including the former Attorney General Bill Barr.
03:57There are financial documents that we believe we can subpoena that will allow us to be able to follow the money, just like what the victims' attorneys requested.
04:09None of this is addressed in the Massey-Khana bill.
04:12And so to the point that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have repeatedly made that, well, why didn't Democrats do something about it for four years?
04:21And then the answer has been repeatedly, well, President Trump campaigned on it.
04:25Well, to the extent that we have a collective bipartisan desire to seek the truth wherever it may lead, is it not a good thing that President Trump campaigned on this?
04:35That's a great thing.
04:36And has a Department of Justice that in the spring released the flight logs, 117 pages, whatever it is, I don't have it in front of me, and other information.
04:46And that now there's been continued efforts such that even now, just today, we have, what, 33,000 or 34,000 records that were released, pages of records, correct?
04:54Correct.
04:55And that through your efforts as the Republican chairman, but I would like to say in working with the Democrat ranking member, that you are pursuing truth and having people come forward, issuing subpoenas with the full force that a subpoena carries as a Congressional Committee on Oversight, correct?
05:12Correct.
05:13And that is all underway, and that in truth, there are legitimate questions about the underlying legislation that is attempting to be discharged.
05:22Therefore, it might raise questions as to whether it would pass the Senate or whether the president would sign it, because it raises questions of separation of powers, it raises issues involving grand jury secrecy, and involves questions involving the statutes and the errors that are in it, whereas we have a resolution with the full force of the House of Representatives that would be reinforcing what the Oversight Committee, as led by you, but also in direct working with your colleague,
05:52is caring for to bring forward to bring forward all this information.
05:54Is that all fair?
05:55They're 100% right.
05:57And lastly, is it not true that whatever's being presented to you all, whatever information is given to you, to the extent that you're adding any redactions or anything, your colleagues on the other side of the aisle are getting the unredacted material.
06:10They get exactly what we get.
06:11So to the extent that you make a determination about releasing something, to the extent there was something politically sensitive or untoward, your colleagues on the other side of the aisle would have all the same information and they could raise it.
06:22They could call us out on it at that very second.
06:25Look, I just think for the average person watching this, to be very clear, the Trump administration died at Epstein, the Trump administration went after Maxwell, the Trump administration released records within two months of assuming office, the Trump administration has been complying with subpoenas and providing information to the Oversight Committee, Republican Oversight Committee has been putting forward information, we now have 34,000 more records out for the public to be able to look at.
06:50But in addition to the reality that the people charged with prosecuting crimes have to be able to look at information that isn't necessarily going to be made public and shouldn't be, correct?
07:01Correct.
07:01Like, we don't just say, oh, here's the mob boss files, here, America, go forward and find all the mobsters.
07:07We don't do that with drug kingpins or cartels, right?
07:11We don't just say, man, there's a lot of bad guys out there, we've got a whole file of stuff, who are you protecting, right?
07:16We have oversight, we look at it, and you're conducting that oversight on a bipartisan basis.
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