00:00Absent that, I will yield the balance of time.
00:03No, I mean, look, I'll just reiterate what I said, Congressman, before, which was that
00:09we in no way oppose any effort for more transparency and accountability.
00:13And if that's, if the resolution moves forward, then it moves forward.
00:16At the end of the day, though, every single Republican that wants transparency and accountability
00:20should sign the discharge petition.
00:22And every member of Congress should be on record supporting the full release of the
00:25Epstein files.
00:26Well, I thank the ranking member.
00:28I certainly agree with him.
00:30I just left the floor, just signed the discharge petition.
00:32I hope my colleagues will do the same.
00:34I'm happy to yield to the ranking member.
00:35And one other thing you could, we could do other than signing the discharge petition,
00:39which I urge everybody to do, is that we will offer the Massie County Resolution as an amendment
00:45to the, you know, to make it in order of, under the rule, and we could then all vote on it
00:49tomorrow as well.
00:50I thank the gentleman.
00:52Agreed.
00:53I yield back to the chair.
00:57Thank you, Mr. Negus.
00:58Mr. Griffiths, you're recognized.
00:59Thank you, Madam Chair.
01:00I associate myself with the comments that Mr. Scott made just a couple of minutes ago,
01:05and I yield back.
01:07Mr. Jack, you're recognized.
01:10Thank you, Madam Chair.
01:11I, you know, I just want to note, as it relates to this resolution, obviously, it's my resolution,
01:16but, you know, I find interesting, as it relates to the 24 election, 74 million Americans voted
01:24for House Republicans to lead the House of Representatives.
01:27And the body that is responsible for leading the Republican Party as a steering committee.
01:33And on that steering committee, which I serve, we unanimously elected Mr. Comer to lead the
01:38oversight committee.
01:39And then he was unanimously ratified by our conference.
01:41So, to me, you know, we as a body have spoken as it relates to who we want to lead investigations
01:49and investigative work.
01:50The oversight committee, as the chairman has no doubt noted throughout this entire hearing,
01:55has already yielded, what is it, 34,000 documents that were publicized just hours ago.
02:00I mean, unprecedented transparency.
02:04And I want to commend him and also just note that, for the record, you know, your leadership
02:09on this committee is an affirmation of how this entire Republican conference feels about
02:13your ability to lead complex investigations as such.
02:17And I think that's one of the reasons why this investigation must be housed in oversight
02:20and one of the reasons why I support it being there.
02:23I am just curious, obviously, Mr. Norman had some, you know, some interesting thoughts and
02:29comments as it relates to, you know, what happened over the four years of the Biden administration.
02:33If I could just ask Mr. Garcia, do you have any thoughts as to why the Biden administration
02:37never released any documents?
02:40I don't.
02:41I mean, I'm not aware as to why or what the DOJ was investigating at the time.
02:45What I do know is that the current president campaigned on releasing the files, which is
02:50why I think it's of such high interest to so many of us now.
02:53But fair enough.
02:54But no, no thoughts as to why it wasn't a pressing issue for the Biden DOJ in the four years
02:58that Attorney General Garland led it.
03:01I'm not sure what the DOJ or what their effort was as it relates to this case.
03:05I mean, obviously, I know in all previous administrations, there has been work done on this on this case
03:11as to why things were released or not released.
03:13I'm not aware.
03:14Is that something that oversight Democrats would be interested in exploring as to why
03:17the Biden Department of Justice refused to investigate this?
03:20I think I think oversight Democrats are interested in any and all information as relates to any
03:24administration as to why things were released or not released or what information they have
03:29or may not have.
03:30And we're interested in all of it.
03:32And just I want to note, and I'll ask the chair and the ranking member, too, obviously,
03:37you've served on this committee longer than us.
03:38And this resolution is pretty unprecedented.
03:40I think it's the first time this committee has ever directed another committee to release
03:45documents in this capacity.
03:47Is that a fair statement, a fair, accurate assessment of what this resolution is doing?
03:51I don't quite frankly understand why we're doing this resolution, because the committee
03:55is already doing what this resolution says it's supposed to do.
04:01But I don't think it's earth shattering that we're going to vote on this resolution.
04:08Again, I think that the reason why some of us are pushing for the Massey counter resolution
04:14bill is because we think all the documents ought to be released.
04:20And the president promised he would do that during his campaign.
04:26And right-wing media said he was going to release it.
04:28And then all of a sudden, his tone has changed.
04:33So I don't have any problem with this resolution that we're dealing with right now.
04:37I think it's unnecessary.
04:39And I do think we need to pass the Massey counter resolution.
04:41But I just, fair enough, I just want to acknowledge that, as I understand it, and would welcome
04:46you correcting me later on, that this is the first time, and so far as any of us know,
04:50the committee has directed another standing committee to act in this manner, which I think
04:56is very important.
04:57And I think it shows the seriousness of this resolution.
05:00So I don't, you know, view it as anything other than productive.
05:03Madam Chair.
05:04If I can respond to that also, I think the Massey resolution has asked for a similar scope
05:17of DOJ documents, excuse me.
05:20But it's not binding, and it also doesn't have the force of law.
05:27Right.
05:28And there's much that is in this resolution that is not requested in the Massey resolution.
05:40So we're doing a lot more than the Massey resolution.
05:45And mandating it from this committee, I think, puts an extra emphasis on it.
05:54And I want to point out something earlier that was said by Ms. Ledger-Fernandez.
05:59She brought up the issue that Democrats force this out of the oversight committee.
06:09But if the gentleman would yield, Mr. Comer, would you explain that?
06:16Because we do have a majority on the oversight committee.
06:20How could the minority force the chairman of the subcommittee to do anything?
06:26They can't.
06:27There was a motion, and the Republican subcommittee chair, Mr. Higgins, accepted that motion.
06:36And it was voted on by a majority of Republicans as well.
06:40So we weren't forced to do anything.
06:43The committee wanted to do it.
06:45I mean, our oversight committee has been very vocal that they would love to take part in
06:53an investigation with respect to finding out the truth about Epstein Island.
06:58So our committee's been on this, and there was nothing forced down our throats.
07:02We operated the way we operate.
07:06Madam Chair?
07:08Well, would the gentleman yield?
07:10I'll yield to you yield.
07:12First of all, I think the subcommittee chair voted no on the subpoena.
07:16But let me put that aside for now.
07:18I don't mean to correct the chairwoman, but what we're talking about here is a resolution.
07:25And the discharge petition would bring to the floor a bill that could become law.
07:33And a law has more force than a resolution.
07:38And so all we're saying is, you know, let us pass the law and put some teeth in it.
07:44Because, again, the president of the United States has changed his tune.
07:48He now is saying that this is a hoax and that Republicans who go along with it are stupid.
07:53That's his quote.
07:55I thank the gentleman or the gentlelady, whoever yielded to me.
07:59Well, I think the reason we are involved with this in this committee is because the House can bind,
08:08the Rules Committee can bind a committee of the House.
08:13And that's what we're doing.
08:14We're binding the committee to do its job.
08:18And if Mr. Comer, as the chair, doesn't do his job, I believe he could suffer consequences as a result of this resolution.
08:29And I think that's important.
08:31It's showing that we mean something.
08:33And I think, as Mr. Jack said, the bill then, if you do the other, the Massey resolution, has to go to the Senate.
08:43We could do both.
08:44We could do both.
08:45But we'll see.
08:46It's, again, it's being, there's been a, the petition is being signed to release it.
08:54If it's released, fine.
08:55But we're doing this today.
08:57But Republicans could accept my amendment to make it in order, and we could do it immediately.
09:02And we'll have that debate.
09:03I'll just close by saying that, again, I want to commend Chairman Comer.
09:07Under your leadership, more transparency has ever occurred under this issue
09:11because of what you've done over the last three or four weeks.
09:15And it's why I think the conference elected you to lead the Oversight Committee
09:19and why the conference chose you to be the person responsible for these complex investigations.
09:24And it's already produced a lot of transparency in that regard.
09:27So with that, Madam Chair, I will yield back.
09:29Thank you very much.
09:35Mr. Roy, I'm going to recognize you.
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