Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / Mike Rogers Faces Scrutiny Over Epstein Comments and Campaign Donors (10/21/26)

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Mike Rogers Faces Scrutiny Over Epstein Comments and Campaign Donors (10/21/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome to another episode of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Epstein Chronicles. As we continue to inch closer to the
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: midterm elections, both sides have some surprises planned for the other.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to the race in Michigan, that's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: exactly what we just saw. Because the Democratic Party up
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: in Michigan just released an audio of Senate candidate Mike
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Rogers arguing that the names of Donald Trump and his
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: associates should be redacted in the Epstein files. And according
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: to Mr. Rogers, it's more important that their reputations are maintained,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: even if that comes at the expense of overall transparency.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Because according to Mike Rogers, you don't deserve to know
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: who was hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, and all of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: this is just overblown, and it's nothing more than an
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: attack on Donald Trump. So in this episode, we have
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: another article from Raw Story and the headlines. Mike Rogers
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: wanted Epstein plane passengers like Trump kept secret and resurfaced audio.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: This article was authored by David Edwards. Audio of Trump-backed
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Senate candidate Mike Rogers arguing that the names of some
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: people who flew on Jeffrey Epstein's plane should be hidden
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: from public view boomeranged on him two weeks before Election
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Day after Michigan Democrats resurfaced the clip in which he
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: also dismissed critics who just want to be after President
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And he was getting his marching orders from
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Trump called it a hoax, so all of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: his surrogates jumped on board. I mean, look at all
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: the people that used to scream and cry about, oh,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the children, oh, the trafficking, oh, this, that, the other thing. Now,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it's all just a big hoax. Why? Because Donald Trump
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: told you so? Never believe your lying eyes. Just believe
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: what the party tells you. I mean, that's the point
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: we've arrived at. There's a lot of people out there
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that want us just to believe whatever they say, whatever
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: their candidates say, with nothing more to back it up
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: than their word. Now, that might be acceptable for some people,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: but for the vast majority of us, those days are over.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Nobody believes anything that they're being told by politicians, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: they shouldn't. The Michigan Democratic Party resurfaced the audio Tuesday
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in a post on X, saying Rogers argued the file
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: should be redacted to protect Trump and his other associates.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Rogers made the remarks during a July 2025 appearance on
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Fox News host Brian Kilmeade's show, the Detroit Metro Times
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: noted last month. Rogers, a former House Intelligence Committee chairman
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: endorsed by Trump, is running for U.S. Senate in Michigan
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who has his own problems,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: by the way, but at least he wasn't palling around
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: with Epstein. or making excuses for those who were. Unlike
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers, who according to his own commentary, he thinks
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it's more important to keep these names sealed than to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: get some transparency and justice for those who were abused.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I do believe you have to protect victims. You also
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: have to protect somebody who got on an airplane and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: rode with them, Rogers told Kilmeade. What? Why? How about
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the person who got on the airplane and rode with
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: them should explain why. Why were you on Jeffrey Epstein's plane?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: What exactly were you doing spending time with this disgusting individual? Obviously, Mr.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Rogers doesn't even want to know that. He doesn't care
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: because these are all of his donors. These are his people.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And according to him, their privacy is more important than
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: transparency or justice for the survivors or for the country
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: as a whole. And in my opinion, someone like that
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is not fit to be a senator. They may have
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: had legitimate business reasons. You can't put that person out there.
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  Speaker 1: The court of public opinion would ruin their life for
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: no reason. He continued, no reason. They were with Jeffrey Epstein.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And if they were with him after the first conviction,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: what are you even talking about? You can't even act
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: like you don't know. And this whole entire push to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: keep names private while outing survivors and not getting to
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the actual truth is a big problem
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: for the GOP. And I think it's going to have
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: serious consequences in a couple of weeks. Now look, I'm
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: not telling you that every single voter is going to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: get out there and vote on this issue. But there's
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: going to be a block of voters who have had enough.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of those voters traditionally swung right.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: But after being called traitors and having this story called
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a hoax, I'm not too sure that those folks are
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: too fired up to get out there in the midterms
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: and support the people calling them traitors. The thing is,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: around Epstein's Island and all of that, to me, that
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: ought to be released, Rogers said. But I'd be very
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: cautious how you do it. And I don't think a big,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a big ugly vote on the House floor was the
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  Speaker 1: right way to do that. Yeah, because it outed your boy.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Because Donald Trump told you not to. And this is
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: the biggest kind of coward. Real talk, dudes like this
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  Speaker 1: cannot be trusted. And I'm sorry if that offends people.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: This is a man who will do whatever Donald Trump
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: tells him to do. And if he becomes senator, well,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: you think he's going to go against the grain? He
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: most certainly is not. He's going to do what the
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: party tells him, what Donald Trump tells him, and whatever's
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: best for his future. And if that means stomping all
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: over the Epstein Transparency Act, that's what he'll do. You
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: do have to protect not only the victims, but the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: innocent people who get sucked up. So their name is
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: on a report somewhere. It doesn't mean they did one
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: thing wrong in the raw files, Rogers argued. hey, Mr. Rogers,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: dumb fuck, here's the problem. Nobody ever investigated these people.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Never once. So all your friends that you say, oh,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: they were just on the plane. We don't know that.
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  Speaker 1: How do we know what they were up to? How
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: do we know what kind of business dealings were going down?
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: How do we know what kind of financial ineptitude was
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: taking place? How much financial malfeasance was taking place? Those
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: are the questions we have, Mr. Rogers. And if that
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  Speaker 1: offends you, Fuck you and your neighborhood. And while I'm
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: at it, fuck everybody who rode on that plane with
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Epstein. You don't want to hurt that person's career
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: or reputation or family either, he added. You can do it.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: You can't do it in a big sloppy way. Well,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: no one's hurting their reputation. They hurt it themselves. Why'd
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: they put themselves in that position? What, there's no self-responsibility?
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: No self-providence? I thought everybody was responsible for their own actions.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Why you playing the victim, Mr. Rogers? Mr. Rogers. That
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  Speaker 1: shit cracks me up, by the way. Sorry. But why
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: you playing the victim? Out here acting like, oh, my
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: poor reputation. My friend's reputation's gonna be hurt. Well, tell
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: your friends to stop hanging out with pedophiles. Thanks for
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: coming to my TED Talk. And listen, people who just
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: want to be after Trump are just going to beat
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: this drum all day long because they don't have anything else,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Rogers said. I wonder if this dude's epiglottis is sore.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It has to be swollen, right? From glazing the president
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: this way. Maybe we should call Mike Rogers Bonnie Blue.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, with this throat game and all. Rogers pressed
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the point in a separate podcast appearance that July, arguing
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: that names should be redacted or blacked out if there
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: was no evidence the person knew about or took part
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: in Epstein's crimes. The Metro Times reported, Once again, dickhead,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: we don't know. No investigation was ever had. That's the problem.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: So you see, when people come out here and say, Well,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: someone's reputation is going to be destroyed. That's on them, okay?
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: They should have come forward previously. At this point, I
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: don't care. If you are hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and you don't have a legitimate excuse for it or
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you haven't come forward and met the allegations head on,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: then you're hiding something. So fuck you and your reputation.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: By the time Rogers argued for protecting people named in
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the records, Trump's name in the files was already public.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The Justice Department released flight logs from Epstein's plane in
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: February 2025, showing Trump and his family were passengers, Montana's
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Belgrade News reported. Well, yeah, there's no doubt that they were. Okay?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: They were on the plane. Now Trump will tell you,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: it was just a one-off. Me and Jeffrey, we weren't
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that close. Why you on the plane, homie, okay? If
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: you're not close with somebody, you're not going to be
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: on their plane, especially when you're rich. You have your
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: own plane. You don't need Jeffrey Epstein's. And look, that's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: not me saying he was on the plane and he was,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you know, going to town, having a fucking Caligula kind
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: of night. But there's no doubt that he was on
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the plane. And there's no doubt that that's why people
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: like Mike Rogers are saying what they're saying. Trying to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: carry water for the president and trying to ease the burden. Well,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: guess what? It's not going to work. Because in my opinion,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is right at the top of this cover-up.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: And when the wheels finally come off, it's going to
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: be damning for the whole movement In June 2025, about
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a month after the Kilmeade interview, former White House advisor
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Elon Musk posted on X that Trump is in the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Epstein files, PolitiFact reported. The Metro Times report also found
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: that at least seven donors named in the release files
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: have given nearly $ 4. 7 million to Rodgers' campaign and groups
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: backing him since 2023. The report said some are mentioned
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: only in other people's messages. Well, isn't that nice? Mr. Rodgers.
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  Speaker 1: Bringing a whole bunch of scumbags into the neighborhood. This
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  Speaker 1: is the biggest problem, folks, okay? Epstein might be gone,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: but his network is not. The people that funded him,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: the people that protected him, the people that... ran him,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: they're still here. And they're still up to their same
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: old shit. More than $ 4. 5 million of the total came
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: from Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman, who gave to a super
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: PAC supporting Rogers and faces no allegations of wrongdoing tied
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to Epstein, according to the Metro Times. Another donor, Apollo
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: CEO Mark Rowan, is named hundreds of times in the records,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: which show he and Epstein were in contact years after
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Epstein's 2008 conviction, the outlet reported. Yeah, so if you're
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: wondering why Mike Rogers is so against people being outed,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: it's because his donors are those people. And this is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: what I've been telling you for years. And I know
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: people get mad at me when I say it, but
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: there are no good guys. There are only great characters.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Mike Rogers is a former FBI agent who busted human traffickers.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Campaign spokeswoman Elisa Brolet told the Metro Times in response,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the insinuation that he would take money from anyone engaged
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: in that activity is disgusting. Did he or did he
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: not accept money from Jeffrey Epstein's pals? Yes or no?
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: The answer is yes. So save all the other nonsense. Oh, well,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: he was a gunslinging advocate for the children. and a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: man against human trafficking, please save all of that bullshit
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: for somebody else. Because your propaganda ends where his words start.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And according to Mike Rogers' own words, the donors and
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Epstein's buddies are much more important than you knowing the truth.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So the question is, is that somebody that is qualified
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to be a senator? Well, that decision is going to
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: be up to you. All the information that goes with
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this episode can be found in the description box.