00:00Joining us now, Congressman Becca Balland of Vermont, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee.
00:06Congresswoman, do you think Homan should be fired?
00:09I think Homan should absolutely be held accountable for being caught with $50,000 cash in a bag.
00:17I think he should resign.
00:19He is a disgrace to this government.
00:23And we were already having Homan on our radar screen in the Judiciary Committee.
00:28There was a letter submitted to him just about a month ago from the Judiciary Committee demanding that he answer questions regarding his conflicts of interest.
00:39We have strong concerns that he may be accepting kickbacks for contracts that he has helped to usher through.
00:48He had worked for a conglomerate that does immigration detention, and over a billion dollars of work has already been shunted to that group.
01:00We have strong concerns about that.
01:02And, of course, it just certainly looks like a big grift when you've got somebody caught with cash in a bag promising that when he is in a position of power, he's going to give them work.
01:12It's outrageous, and we're going to demand questions.
01:17Just to clarify, you're saying that not only is it the allegation of $50,000 in cash in CAVA bags, it's other concerns that millions of dollars has been funneled to a network that could potentially be self-serving.
01:35And so on top of that, there's video of the sting.
01:39Can you get that video?
01:41Can your committee get the video and release it to the public, the video that was reported on by Carol Lening, our colleague?
01:48Certainly between the Oversight Committee and the Judiciary Committee, we are going to be hitting hard, not just DOJ, not just on the FBI and why Cash Patel decided to not pursue this case,
02:03but also to make a plea to our head of our Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, that is this the kind of thing that he wants to sit and watch happen in his government?
02:20It is absolutely shocking that we can't get answers from home and about his conflict of interest and that now we're just seeing this story released.
02:30I wish we had known this when Cash Patel was in front of our committee last week.
02:34We certainly would have had a lot more questions to ask him about, Mr. Holman.
02:38Yeah, actually, I was going to ask you about that.
02:40To Jeffrey Epstein, the FBI director, as you just mentioned, he was in front of your committee last week.
02:46Obviously, he was not asked about this, but he was asked about a lot of other things.
02:50Quite a performance he put on there.
02:52What was your big takeaway about the way he has been running the FBI since he's become the director?
02:57Well, for someone who claims that he is all about transparency, he has absolutely been doing a shell game with agents within the FBI.
03:09There were a thousand agents pulled off to sift through the Epstein files when we tried to nail him down.
03:15What were the projects that they were pulling off, pulled off of in order to do that work,
03:21to try to determine whether Trump's name was in the files?
03:24There are certainly aspects of the Bureau that are not getting the attention that they deserve,
03:31whether it isn't trafficking, whether it is white-collar crime, whether it's going after corruption.
03:36And he absolutely did not answer our questions.
03:41It was about fighting with us.
03:43It was about casting aspersions on the members asking the questions.
03:47And look, I just want to make it clear to Americans who are watching this,
03:51it is the job of the Judiciary Committee to have oversight over the FBI.
03:56That is not something that is outside of our scope.
04:00In fact, we have a commitment that we make to the American people to know that the DOJ and the FBI
04:06is doing their jobs to protect all of us.
04:08And we have strong concerns also about national security.
04:11And he would not give us any clear answers.
04:15It was, as you said, it was a show.
04:17It was not actually about getting to the bottom of what's happening at the FBI.
04:22I want to hear more about how lawmakers plan to pressure Patel and others around this Homan story.
04:30However, you know, one of the arguments I've heard some people make over the last 48 hours or so is,
04:35you know, D.C. is kind of a swamp, all kinds of people when they're not in their official government jobs.
04:41They're engaged in consulting.
04:43So maybe this was a $50,000 consulting fee.
04:46Yeah, it looks a little weird that it's in a kava bag.
04:49But, you know, this is what D.C. is.
04:51So is he going to, A, have a good defense because of the culture of consulting
04:56and the way people, when they're out of government, make money in connection to these groups,
05:01like the corporate groups that are involved in immigration detention?
05:06And do you think, what would the line of argument be to hold someone like Homan accountable
05:13and to hold the administration accountable if all of this happened during a period
05:17in which he wasn't actually working for the Trump administration?
05:21He made promises to these businessmen that he absolutely would be in the Trump administration.
05:26And if they only gave him a wad of cash, he could make sure that he could get them business
05:31before the Trump administration.
05:33Look, I want to just reassure people who are watching this.
05:36I have never seen people in Washington, D.C. walking around with bags full of cash.
05:44So let's be clear.
05:45This is beyond the pale, OK?
05:46Not even a ton of time.
05:48How could a kava bag?
05:49You'd have to have, like, a deluxe bag to fit $50,000 in there.
05:52OK, let's not normalize.
05:55A briefcase, you know?
05:59Look, this administration is about grift, you know, from the top on down, from the Qatari
06:08plane, OK, to the bitcoins.
06:11It is about how can we extract money from the American people to line our pockets and not
06:19do the work of protecting us?
06:21That's what is supposed to be happening, both with Tom Homan and Kash Patel.
06:25It is not supposed to be self-enrichment.
06:29Congresswoman Becca Ballant, you always are fantastic to have on, so thank you.
06:51Thank you for listening to me.
06:51Yes, I hope you, there is a good thing.
06:55This
06:56one
06:57HOW did you do?
06:59What do you do?
07:00What do you do?
07:01It is not supposed to be so bad.
07:04What about you do?
07:05What about you do?
07:06What about you do?
07:07I'm thinking.
07:07I am thinking.
07:09I don't want a lot of the water.
07:11I am thinking so as I do, so I do.
07:13You don't want a cell on myaguors on my skin but I do that stuff.
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