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Floor Speech
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for his leadership on this bill, which I am proud to cosponsor. I want to respond to my friend and colleague from the State of Wyoming and say when he goes back in time looking at the votes on nominees, don't overlook the JD Vance precedent. JD Vance, then-Senator for Ohio, came to the floor of the U.S. Senate and objected to any type of vocal arrangement--oral vote, when it came to the approval of U.S. attorneys. He said that he wanted all of them to go through the regular order. That stopped, under President Biden, the appointment of all U.S. attorneys.
So to argue that they have clean hands in the situation is to ignore the Vice President's former status, establishing the standard that made it impossible to consider U.S. attorneys on a voice vote.
Let me say about the issue before us on Epstein. Two weeks after the Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as Attorney General, she told FOX News--the mother ship--the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients are ``sitting on my desk right now to review.''
Six days later, Bondi released binders of documents related to Epstein to MAGA influencers, but these documents were largely already publicly available. The absence of any client list led to immense blowback.
Attorney General Bondi returned to FOX News and made another startling claim. She said that a whistleblower told her the FBI withheld ``thousands of pages of documents'' and the country would see ``the full Epstein files.''
Over the next 4 months, DOJ and FBI were silent on this issue until an unsigned July 7 memo was issued finding that ``systemic review revealed no incriminating `client list.' ''
So what happened during the 4 months between Attorney General Bondi's blockbuster claims in February and this July 7 memorandum?
My office received a highly credible whistleblower disclosure describing Attorney General Bondi's pressure on the FBI to quickly review and produce more Epstein documents. For 2 weeks in late March, the FBI assigned approximately 1,000 professional personnel in its Information Management Division and hundreds of additional agents from the New York field office to work 24-hour shifts to review and produce more documents. These officials were told to ``flag'' any records which mentioned President Trump.
Essentially, agents were pulled out of the field from their work combating violent crime to review these documents. Other important work was effectively shut down.
Using tens of thousands of personnel hours at the expense of public safety, for no other reason than to try to bolster baseless claims they have made, is reckless.
President Trump has not helped the situation. Despite his administration continuing to make promises about transparency on Epstein and the existence of records they have not produced, he is currently telling the country it is all a ``scam.''
Last month, President Trump posted on his personal social media that ``my PAST supporters have bought into this `[BS],' hook, line, and sinker. They haven't learned their lesson, and probably never will.''
This is the way the President is talking about his own constituents who are raising concerns about the claims that President Trump's own administration has repeatedly raised.
President Trump and Attorney General Bondi are directly responsible for this confusion and mistrust. They owe Congress and the American people full transparency. Instead, the situation gets more murky when Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell is being interviewed by one of the highest ranking members of the administration. We don't know what the conversation is. We sent a letter that said we want full disclosure to both sides of the aisle on what they discussed, and we want to make sure there are no promises of pardon or clemency for her to speak. She is serving a 20-year term for human trafficking and exploitation of children.
The prosecutor said that she was not a credible witness, and we ought to take that into consideration when considering her role.
So I support Senator Merkley's bill. I am sorry there was an objection.
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