Summer Lee Demands DOJ Hand Over All Of Its Epstein Files 'Immediately'

Forbes Breaking News

During a press conference on Tuesday, Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) demanded the Department of Justice release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein "immediately."

Transcript

00:00Thank you all so much.

00:04About a month ago, we were through the Oversight Committee on Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement.

00:11We, me and alongside our colleagues on that committee, were able to force a vote to pass a motion, to subpoena the Department of Justice

00:18to release all of the fouls associated with the Epstein case, of course, unredacted and complete.

00:26We know that since then, we've seen a small trickle-in of papers and files that, of course, revealed very little new,

00:34but was, again, another attempt to obstruct justice, to distract from what we are here to do, and to, of course, prolong this out.

00:45But what we saw today in listening to these incredibly brave women who were once young girls,

00:51who were victimized repeatedly and have been repeatedly victimized since then

00:55because of profound levels of injustice, profound levels of failure, systemic failure at every single level.

01:04They are here to remind us that the reason why we passed this motion,

01:08the reason why we had even, if it was just a little, bipartisan support at the time,

01:12was because our reason for being here is to make sure that whether it is the government of the United States

01:18or princes or elected officials from other countries or wealthy billionaires,

01:25that no one should be above the law,

01:27that if we are going to be a country of laws, that they must be equal, applied to every single person,

01:34but that also we have a responsibility to restore these victims.

01:40It was the government itself that failed these women.

01:42It's the government itself right now that is keeping them from the justice, from the healing,

01:47and from the peace that they need and that they deserve.

01:50We are here not to add on to the sensationalism of a case that has received global news and global attention,

01:59but to recenter that at the heart of this are human beings,

02:04at the heart of this are women, girls, now generations of girls beneath them.

02:11Though we were able to hear from a number of women today,

02:14we know that there were hundreds, hundreds of women who were involved in this case,

02:19hundreds of women, some, many of whom are unnamed,

02:22but hundreds of women who were victimized, who were sexually abused

02:26and then re-victimized by the obstruction from the government.

02:30And behind them are millions of girls who have watched how our country,

02:34how society handles cases of sexual abuse.

02:37They have watched the rich and the powerful get off.

02:40They have watched, even in death, them be protected.

02:44And we are here as oversight Democrats to say that the time to step up,

02:48the time to push, to fight, to ensure justice is now and today.

02:51It's why we are here to renew our calls, not just for an official hearing,

02:56as Representative Ayanna Pressley has called for an official hearing on the books within our committee.

03:01Though we are thankful for the roundtable that we had today, we affirm our calls for that.

03:05We also reaffirm our calls for the Department of Justice

03:08to hand over immediately all of the files within its custody,

03:13not just to ourselves, but also a reminder that, as we learned today,

03:17some of the victims themselves have not been able to access their own files.

03:20So we want to remind the press, we want to remind our country and the population

03:27that these women are still seeking justice for themselves,

03:30that they're still seeking healing for themselves.

03:31And to the extent that we are able to continue to keep our eyes on what the ultimate prize is,

03:36that we will do that, that we will continue to pursue justice in a way that does no more harm to these women

03:41and does no more harm to any of the victims, not just of Epstein, but of sexual assault across our country.

03:48And with that, actually, I'll be handing it off to our colleague from Texas, Representative Jasmine Crockett.

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