Recently, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA10) has done a number of media “hits” on the topic of Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. This morning, for instance, Rep. Subramanyam was on DC News Now – see below for video and highlights, including Rep. Subramanyam’s thoughts on former Attorney General Bill Barr’s deposition with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday.
- “So, you know, having Bill Barr there was not exactly the best person to have there…I’ll say that, you know, he didn’t do anything to make me feel better about the situation. He didn’t do anything to clear the president’s name, certainly. And what he did do, though, is bring up more questions. For instance, I would like to talk to Alex Acosta. Now he’s the former prosecutor who gave Epstein a sweetheart deal in 2007. Which kind of led to, you know, more victims later on. And so I would like to see him come before the committee. And obviously, I’d like to see AG Bondi as well.”
- “I mean, we were asking the hard questions on the Democratic side and doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I think this Republican majority wants to essentially cover for the president and block and tackle for him. Essentially, the kinds of questions that were being asked were essentially, you know, things that are already in the public record. And, you know, we were asking very direct questions. And I think the difference was very striking to me. And so as this continues, again, you know, they’re trying to subpoena the Clintons. What do the Clintons have to do with the Trump administration’s cover up of this? I don’t know. And so what I would like to see is having AG Bondi come before us. Or the thing that will end all of this is if they just release the unredacted full files – they could have done that yesterday, that was their deadline. Their deadline was yesterday to release them and they didn’t do that. And now they’re saying that they’re going to release a trickle of files. And what I think they’re going to do is release them selectively in a way that makes the president look great. And I think in the end, that’s not what the American people want or deserve.”
- “I think they want to select documents to release. They don’t want to release all of the files that they have. They certainly wouldn’t want to release a list that would embarrass the president in any sort of way – or anything that, you know, speaks about the relationship between the president and Jeffrey Epstein or any of the president’s friends or donors and Jeffrey Epstein. And so I think that’s why there’s been this slow trickle. And again, it’s the easiest thing in the world to just say, we’re going to release the files exactly like they promised on the campaign over the last couple years. I mean, I talked to one voter who said one of the reasons they voted for Donald Trump was because the Biden administration was engaged in this cover up. And so either the Trump administration and Donald Trump, they were lying during the campaign and there was no cover up. Or they are the ones covering things up right now. Or, you know, the president’s very involved and mentioned in these files in an embarrassing way, and they don’t want to release them. Either way, it’s not good for the American people. And on the oversight committee, it’s our job to get answers.”
- “I’ll say this…I’m new to Congress, but even in previous administrations, I support full transparency, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican in office. And so, you know, moving forward, if you’re going to promise people files related to someone who committed terrible crimes as part of an effort to show the American people that no one is above the law, no matter how much money they have, this is the way to do it. But this president, this administration has shown the opposite. They’ve shown that, you know, the president can receive a plane from Qatar, but, you know, everyday people engage in any sort of wrongdoing will be prosecuted by the administration to the fullest if they’re a political opponent…And so I think this administration is sending the opposite message that they campaigned on, which is transparency, and that nobody is above the law.”
- “I say that the victims deserve a voice in this entire process. If they want to see the files, it’s incumbent upon us to pressure this administration to get the full files and anything else that will bring any semblance of sort of peace for them, because they’ve been through hell, you know, and this has been a terrible situation for them. And I think it was a failing of our criminal justice system that Jeffrey Epstein continued to prey on girls, essentially, over these years. And we did nothing about it. And so we have big reforms that we need to make. And part of this is releasing these files, giving the victims what they asked for is a great step in the right direction. But this administration made that promise. And so far they haven’t kept it.”
- “I’d like to avoid a shutdown. The best way to avoid a shutdown is to do what we’ve done in previous sessions, which is to come together in a bipartisan way and figure out a way to continue the government. I’d like to see us pass budgets and not have to go six months at a time, CR to CR. But, you know, it looks like this Republican majority is going to do this in a partisan way again. And I think they’re going to need a votes on the Senate Democratic side, because they’re not going to get us bailing them out if they’re going to do a partisan bill that essentially, shuts down the government anyway by cutting very essential people, including a lot of Virginia federal workers that I represent.”
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