'What The Hell Are We Afraid Of?': Chip Roy Demands Continued Investigation Into Epstein Files

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During a House Rules Committee hearing last week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) spoke about creating a subcommittee in the House Judiciary Committee to investigate the Epstein files.

Transcript

00:00Roy. I know the chairwoman would like us to be able to get the rule voted out and get on with

00:07our evenings. I do think my friend from Virginia, though, deserves a full elucidation of, I think,

00:22the position from which he comes, which is coming at it from my vantage point,

00:26a set historian. I know the gentleman well. He's a dear friend. He's coming out of the

00:32perspective of, in my view, like we were talking about earlier, pursue the truth wherever it may

00:39lead. I guess, for me, as someone who voted for the electors, as someone who had issues with the

00:53way everything unfolded and was very public in his pronouncement of those issues, I will tell you I

01:01have serious issues with what happened to some of my fellow Texans at the hands of supposedly

01:07objective jurists and prosecutors that put good people that I know in Texas in jail for simply

01:16being present near the Capitol. I know that there are a lot of facts that have been put forward that

01:23I don't believe because I believe was a politically motivated effort. And what the gentleman from

01:30Virginia is simply saying is that we should have a committee to go figure it all out on the Judiciary

01:36Committee, with lawyers, with the full power of subpoena. And we should know the truth.

01:42We should know the truth. In whatever direction it goes, we should know the truth.

01:50I believe that and have full-throatedly said it. But what I'm not going to do is listen to a

01:55dismissal of my friend's concerns as somehow not being appropriate, because he's laying out what I

02:04think is perfectly appropriate, which is that we have a committee to look into this. Now,

02:08January, February, March disagreements, well, hell's bells, there's disagreements. Well,

02:14at least we're having a frigging debate on our side. But whatever disagreements there are,

02:19is being put forward now with a solution, which is a subcommittee on the Judiciary Committee to look

02:23into the facts and pursue the truth. What the hell are we afraid of? What are we afraid of finding out?

02:30If there's something that they're going to put forward that you disagree with, highlight it.

02:37But at least there'll be investigators and staff and members that can go look at a politically

02:42charged effort, which was by definition one-sided, and then go look at the record and decide whether

02:52that record reflects the truth. I support my friend from Virginia, and I yield back.

03:01Thank you. Madam Chair, I promise I'll be brief. I'm ready to move on with this. But I would just

03:07ask that we remember that when this was set up, Pelosi had eight appointments, McCarthy had five,

03:15if you recall. Am I correct? Correct. McCarthy picked Jim Banks, Jim Jordan,

03:21Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong, Troy Nels, according to my records. And then Pelosi rejected the minority

03:30appointments. And she then selected both the chair and the vice chair, and she selected the Republicans

03:42that served on the committee, not the minority leader. And had she not done that, we would not

03:50be having this discussion right now, because then there would, then both sides would have been

03:56represented, and you could have had an objective discussion. But it was Pelosi's rejection of the

04:05Republican members of the committee, and then her insistence on selecting the Republicans who could

04:10serve in picking the chair and the vice chair is the reason we're even having this discussion.

04:14With the gentleman yield, that also included the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee,

04:17Mr. Jordan, correct? That is correct. I yield. I yield. Thank you. Any further debate on the amendment?

04:26Madam Chair, so all of us on this side of the aisle were here. It was my third day in office, January 6th.

04:36And it deserved, it demanded to be investigated. And there were attempts to make sure that there would

04:50be a bipartisan commission that stood outside, and Republicans voted that down. But the other thing

04:58that happened, and I think that this is why Representative Scanlon's motion is important, if the public would

05:10look at this, they don't know Section 9, House Resolution 605 is hereby adopted. There was no presentation

05:20of this before the rules committee. We did not hear from the chair and the ranking member, so we could not

05:30have a debate and ask questions. The American people could not see what was happening. It was just

05:41hereby adopted. 605. How do the American people know what Resolution 605 is? So that's why we are raising

05:55these issues, because it has been just thrust upon them. And if we hadn't brought this, if Chair McGovern

06:02hadn't started his amendment, if Representative Scanlon had not had hers, there would have been no debate

06:08whatsoever. And I think that that is an important thing. And as to the issue of, if this is passed,

06:16will you vote for the bill? There are always amendments to the bill that we consider, and in fact, I know

06:25that before I had the privilege and honor and benefit of sitting on the rules committee, when Democrats

06:33headed it up, there were many Republican amendments to Democrat bills. We didn't demand that if your

06:41amendment, if you were a Republican and your amendment was passed, and many of those Republican

06:46amendments were passed, and many of these Democratic amendments to the appropriations bill will get

06:52passed. There is not a requirement that if your amendment is adopted on a piece of law that you must vote for

06:59the bill. That's never been a requirement. Right? It's just not how it works.

07:07It's just not how it works. And so to demand that does not make sense, and it's not consistent to how

07:13this legislative process works. And given that it is Representative Scanlon's amendment, I'm going to

07:20give her some time to her. I just keep coming back to the fact that we have this bare bones

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