00:00The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from Florida is recognized.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Frosch, thanks for being here, coming across the pond.
00:11I'm sorry to hear you're leaving the hearing early.
00:14Well, it's not a question of leaving the hearing early, but I do have other things to do.
00:18Oh, where are you going?
00:19I'm so sorry about that.
00:20It's okay. Where are you going?
00:21It's not lunch, I promise you.
00:23It's not lunch? You're not going to have lunch?
00:25I don't think so, no.
00:26No lunch?
00:26Sad, isn't it?
00:27You're meeting with the President?
00:27I can't remember what the show and Jill is. It's possible.
00:30You can't remember if you're meeting with the President.
00:34I'm being very polite, and I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing this afternoon, but I can assure you that...
00:39But there's the free speech hearing. You're not going to tell me what you're doing this afternoon?
00:42Oh, free speech is one thing. Discretion is quite another, too.
00:45Okay.
00:46All right, so you're leaving to have lunch with the President.
00:49So, Mr. Frosch, I have a question. Have you heard about the Epstein thing that's going on here?
00:55I have.
00:55You have? What do you think about it?
00:57I'm not going to give comment on anything happening in America. I'm here as a witness.
01:01Perfect.
01:01I'm here as a witness.
01:03Let me...
01:03I'm here as a witness for what is happening in the United Kingdom and in the European...
01:07Perfect. Let me just go through it. So it's been nine months, right, since we've been meeting in these hearings.
01:12We've not had Pam Bondi here, even though we have jurisdiction over the Department of Justice, not Dan Bondi.
01:17The gentleman, you know?
01:19Nat Cash Patel. I will. I will. A hundred percent. We'll go back and forth. Let me just do my thing.
01:23Okay. Well, I'm just going to correct. Cash Patel's coming in two weeks. I'll give you an extra ten seconds.
01:28Cash Patel, the Director of the FBI, is coming in two weeks, and the Attorney General is coming in four weeks.
01:31Fantastic. But still, we're not doing that this week, the week we're having votes on the Epstein thing.
01:39So, you know, Pam Bondi gives the influencers, these Republican influencers, a binder. It says part one of the Epstein files.
01:46Don't know if you saw it. It was quite spectacular.
01:49The Attorney General then says the Epstein list is on her desk.
01:53Then DOJ issues a memo, says there is no list.
01:57Then, you know, the...
02:00Do you have any questions about any of that?
02:02We've had no hearings on any of that at all, that, you know, the list is on my desk, then there is no list, then we gave binders to Republican influencers.
02:13This committee said no questions on any of how that transpired at the Department of Justice.
02:18Then, hold on.
02:19Well, it sounds like you're going to in the next few weeks, and that's a jolly good thing.
02:23Mr. Brosh, we can talk soon, but not yet, okay?
02:27So, you know, then the president comes out and says the whole thing's a hoax.
02:32He blasts his own base.
02:35He blames Barack Obama.
02:37I mean, he hasn't been president for a very long time.
02:40Republicans then, in committee, vote against the release in the Rules Committee.
02:43Then Republicans refuse to go back in the Rules Committee because they're getting blasted for their vote, getting crushed by their own base.
02:51We leave, Congress leaves a day early.
02:54Then the administration sends the deputy attorney general to meet with Maxwell in jail.
02:59He happens to be Trump's former personal attorney.
03:01She says something favorable about the president.
03:04Miraculously, she gets transferred to a minimum security prison.
03:07The president starts talking about how he has the right to pardon her if he wanted to.
03:11The leaks to the Wall Street Journal then stop.
03:14We come back from break.
03:15We have the Massey petition.
03:17Comer does a document dump where 97% of these documents are already public.
03:22How long has he had those documents?
03:24Why hasn't he released them for the last six weeks?
03:26Does it the day of the vote?
03:27Then Republicans drop a non-binding resolution trying to kill the Massey discharge petition.
03:32The White House said passing the Massey discharge petition is a hostile act.
03:37But, wow, that's a lot of distraction and deflection and misinformation.
03:47Wait, wait, passing a discharge petition to release the Epstein files, the White House said would be a hostile act.
03:56Nope, we have no questions about that.
03:58But why?
03:58Why is it that we're spending so much political capital to keep this list from coming out?
04:07You think the list should come out?
04:08You think we should know the people who dealt with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Fresh?
04:12I thought I was coming to a hearing on free speech, not process.
04:15Oh, well, listen, but here's the good thing.
04:16That sounds like you're discussing process.
04:19No, no.
04:19Do you think the list should come out?
04:21I have no opinion on it.
04:22I don't know at all.
04:23So we have victims that were sexually abused by potentially people in power, and we don't know who's on the list.
04:29I'm very happy to discuss that with you.
04:30Hold on, Mr. Fresh, we don't know who's on the list.
04:32We don't know who's on the list.
04:34We don't know if the president is or is not.
04:35I'm not going to say he is or isn't.
04:36I'm just going to say these are weird behaviors.
04:39We don't know that there aren't other people in Congress that are on the list, right?
04:42We have no idea.
04:43Do you think the list should come out?
04:44Do you think people in power should be held to account for these victims who have been sexually abused and assaulted?
04:50Do you think the list should come out?
04:51I think that I'm very happy to come to a different hearing where you talk about legal process.
04:56Will the gentleman yield for a quick question?
04:58Were you aware that he has already called for the Epstein file to be released?
05:02It has been reported that he has called for it to be released.
05:04Oh, yeah, right here.
05:05Just to refresh your memory.
05:06I happen to have this.
05:08But that's not what we're in.
05:09Look, you can ask me, if you like, about social security policy.
05:14Do you agree with yourself?
05:15We are here to discuss free speech.
05:17Hold on.
05:18It's awkward for your lunch after this.
05:19Do you agree with yourself?
05:20No, it isn't at all.
05:21Okay.
05:22Mr. Chairman, I'm just curious.
05:23This committee has jurisdiction over the Department of Justice.
05:26Yeah.
05:26Why have we allowed Comer to cover this up for the last couple of months?
05:30As I said.
05:30Why is this committee not taking jurisdiction?
05:32I think I said six weeks ago that we will have the FBI director in.
05:35We will have the attorney general in.
05:36And we are doing that in two weeks.
05:37You can ask all.
05:37You can go through that whole list.
05:39That whole list.
05:40You can do whatever you want to do.
05:41I got lots of questions for the FBI director, including the whistleblower who came forward
05:47and told him that Adam Schiff leaked classified information.
05:50I want to ask him about that as well, as well as the issues you all want to ask him about.
05:53That's why he's coming.
05:54So we can ask all these questions and follow the process, as Mr. Farage just talked about.
05:59The gentleman from Virginia.
06:00Unanimous consent.
06:01Unanimous consent.
06:02I'd like to enter the political article into the record that Mr. Farage said the Epstein file
06:07should be released.
06:08Without objection.
06:09The gentleman from Virginia is recognized.
06:10I thank the chairman.
06:11I want to talk about censorship tools that are being used by Europe and protectionist measures
06:17that have major consequences for U.S. companies and free expression.
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