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Epstein Files Under Scrutiny as Senators Request GAO Investigation · The Epstein Chronicles

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  Speaker 1: What's up, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the
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  Epstein Chronicles. One of the most egregious situations when it
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  comes to Jeffrey Epstein is the fact that the Department
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  of Justice has gotten away with negligence for decades. The
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  first time Mario reported Jeffrey Epstein to the authorities, it
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  should have been followed up on, It should have been investigated,
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  and action should have been taken. And because the FBI
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  and the DOJ ignored the warning, it led directly to
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  countless girls and women being abused in the future. And
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  I'm not naive, right, I understand that time has passed,
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  and we all know that as you're investigating something and
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  time goes by, things happen to the evidence and it
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  ends up walking away. Whether that's by negligence or by design,
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  it happens. But you know what they can hide. You
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  know what's impossible for them to ignore if we really
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  start looking into it, is the way the Justice Department
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  conducted themselves from the very beginning. And I think that
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  if we really want to get to the bottom of
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  all of this, that's where we have to start, because
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  we have to hold them accountable for what they have
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  done or what they haven't done, and now, of course
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  they're engaging in a widespread cover up at what seems
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  to be the behest of a sitting United States president.
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  So yeah, we have some questions, and we're not the
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  only ones, and that's because some senators are seeking to
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  review the Justice Department's handling of these files. And that
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  is exactly what should be happening. And any person who
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  is not in compliance with the law should be held accountable,
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  and if any crimes were committed, those people should be prosecuted.
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  And in a perfect world, that's what would happen. But
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  we all know that we don't live in a perfect world,
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  and we certainly do not live in a perfect country.
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  Today's article is from the Washington Post and the headline
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  senators seek review of Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files.
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  This article was authored by Theodoric Meyer. A bipartisan group
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  of senators is asking the Government Accountability Office to examine
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  the Justice Department's handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein
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  amid concerns the Department is not released all the documents
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  required by law. Well, I don't think you have to
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  be an insider to know that they're not complying with
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  the law. They're doing whatever they want. And the reason is,
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  as I've stated numerous times, because they have nothing to fear.
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  Do you really think that Donald Trump isn't going to
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  pardon these people use a blanket pardon the same way
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  Joe Biden did. He most certainly is, and that gives
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  his people the brazenness that they need to get up
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  there and act the full. If they know they're never
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  going to be accountable for the bullshit they're doing, then
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  why would they stop show up with the hit list,
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  talk about the Dow whole bunch of wild shit, and
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  none of it's relating to the topic at hand. President
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  Trump in November signed a nearly hunanimously passed law mandating
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  the Justice Department make public records related to the late
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  convicted sex offender with narrow restrictions, and those narrow restrictions
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  certainly became wide. Huh. Let's be real. They're pretty much
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  doing whatever they want, and then they just make up
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  excuses as they go along. Oh, we didn't put this
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  out because X and Y and Z, and then we're
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  over here like, well, that's not what the law says
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  you have to do, and the DOJ's answer, we are
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  the law out here. Like Judge Dread, The Department released
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  millions of pages of documents, but Democrats and some Republicans
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  in Congress have raised concerns about how faithfully it complied
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  with the law. The lawmakers have questioned whether all relevant
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  files have been released, criticize the Department for failing to
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  redact victims' names in some instances, and challenge decisions to
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  redact the names of Epstein associates they believed should have
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  been identified. Well, yeah, if you're not a victim, why
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  is your name redacted. That's not what the law says.
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  The law doesn't say protect our friends. It doesn't say
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  keep less Wexner from embarrassment. It says protect the names
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  of the people who are abused. That's what it says.
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  But like usual, this administration doesn't give a damn what
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  the law says. They're just gonna do whatever they want,
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  and until somebody stands up and stops them, that's going
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  to continue to happen. Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat from Oregon,
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  Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Republican Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat from
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  New Mexico, and Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, asked the
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  g an independent agency that's part of the legislative branch,
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  on Wednesday, to examine how the Department reviewed the files
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  and the resulting failure of the Department to follow the law,
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  respond to Congress, and protect victims. And so Lisa Murkowski
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  is the only person that signed off on this. Murkowski
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  is the only Republican that's willing to play ball. Makes
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  sense considering the way they're protecting these people, considering the
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  fight they're putting up when it comes to transparency, and
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  considering the war pathon when it comes to anybody asking questions,
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  It's not a shock that more members of the GOP
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  seem disinterested when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. The Senators
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  are seeking details, including how many people were tasked with
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  reviewing and redacting the files as the Justice Department scrambled
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  to comply with the law, and then he guidance the
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  administration provided them. In a letter to or Rice Williams Brown,
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  GAO's acting comptroller, they echoed concerns by Representative Rocanna and
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  Thomas Massey, the authors of the law requiring the files
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  to be made public, about how the files were redacted.
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  That should be concerning to anybody. I don't understand how
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  it's an issue. How has this become a wedge issue.
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  It's wild to me that anybody could look at this
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  and say to themselves, you know what, this is a
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  one side or the other issue. It's both sides. It's
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  everybody with power. And the more the pitchforks and torches
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  fight with each other, the better these people are. Contrary
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  to Congress's explicit directive to protect victims, these records included
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  email addresses and nude photos in which the names and
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  faces of publicly identified and non public victims could be identified.
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  The senators wrote, But when it came to information identifying
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  powerful business and politics figures who are allegedly co conspirators
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  or material witnesses, the DOJ appears to have heavily redacted
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  those records, not appeers, that's what they did. Got to
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  make sure you protect the bag man right. Got to
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  make sure Leon Black doesn't get put on blast. Got
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  to make sure Les Wesner is still swimming around that
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  money like Scrooge McDuck and all those girls who were victimized.
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  Who gives a shit, They don't matter, not to these people.
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  The letter comes as lawmakers and both parties have continued
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  to scrutinize the Department's handling of the files, more than
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  a month after most of them were made public. And
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  I think that everybody's scrutinizing them, and I don't know
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  how anyone, being honest with themselves can say that this
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  has been a transparent process, because in my opinion, it's
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  been the complete opposite. But the good news is the
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  dow was over a fifty thousand. Senate Minority Leader Charles
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  Schumer accused the Department last month of orchestrating a massive
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  cover up to protect Trump and Depstein's associates. The House
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  Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted last week to subpoena
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  Attorney General Paum Bondy, with five Republicans joining Democrats and
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  voting to compel her to appear for a closed door deposition.
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  Well it's about time. I mean, you would think that
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  pound Bondi, of all people, should be answering some questions, right,
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  Probably a good idea, But unfortunately, what we're gonna get
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  is another performance. She's gonna get up there, act indignant
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  and act like she's the one who's being victimized well
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  at the same time not even recognizing the actual victims. Now,
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  think about that and think about how that makes those
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  survivors feel. Bondi has defended the Department's compliance with the law.
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  The Department made public more records last week that it
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  said were not released before because they were wrongly determined
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  to be duplicates of other records. Sure they were. I'm
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  sure that's exactly what happened. Have you noticed that all
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  the records they quote unquote forget to release, damning? I know,
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  just another coincidence that it happens to be those documents
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  that get forgotten about. This administration released over three million
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  pages of documents, over three million, and Donald Trump signed
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  that law to release all those documents. Bondie testified last
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  month in a contentious appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.
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  He is the most transparent president in the nation's history. Wow.
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  Like for that alone, she should be charged with perjury.
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  That's an obvious lie. The most transparent president of all time. Yes,
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  so transparent that he had to get dragged, kicking and
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  screaming into signing the bill. Super transparent. The senator's request
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  is not lawmaker's first effort to unearth more details about
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  how the department has handled the massive task of reviewing
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  and redacting the files. A dozen senators, including Berkeley, Murkowski,
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  and Durban, wrote in this to don Bertha, you the
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  Justice departments Acting Inspector General to ask them to audit
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  the department's compliance with the law. The Inspector General's office
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  did not immediately respond to a request about whether it
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  has undertaken such an audit. Look, I doubt that they will.
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  And even if they do, do you really trust the
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  OIG after everything that we've seen, after all the reports
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  we've read, I don't trust them at all. So that's
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  why I continue to call for a special counsel or
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  some kind of tribunal something, because what we're doing now
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  is not working, and we can't trust the DOJ to
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  police themselves. And that's why I'm so against the OIG
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  when it comes to situations like this, because the past
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  has proven that they're more interested in covering for the
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  government rather than holding the government responsible for their misconduct.
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  Now that said, at least the Senate is making this move,
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  But if they really want to have some teeth, if
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  they really want to get people know at the DOJ
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  and they really want to force compliance. The way to
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  do that is with the Special Council. So the question
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  is will we ever get there? Will we ever have
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  a special council appointed to take a look at what's
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  happened here going all the way back to the first
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  Clinton administration? I don't know, but I think we should
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  and I think that if we ever want to get
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  any kind of clarity, if we ever want to get
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  to the bottom of what truly happened, then I think
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  a special Council is a vehicle to get us there.
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  And that's why I don't think we'll ever see it.
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  So what do you folks think? Do you think we're
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  going to ever get real transparency here? Do you think
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  the Senate or Congress is going to force the hand
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  of the DOJ or do you think it's going to
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  be more of the same. Shoot me some emails and
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  let me know. All the information that goes with this
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  episode can be found in the description box.