Rep. James Walkinshaw on MSNOW’s The Weekend a little while ago:
- “The law doesn’t allow for that. And the delta of 3 million files, right? So Blanche said there were 6 million; 3 million have been released. Of that 3 million, they’re heavily redacted. Right. So the redactions aren’t even counted in that 50%. Blanche has said that they overcollected when they got to the 6 million files. The law doesn’t allow them to refuse to release files that subjectively, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer believes were overcollected. They got to release all the files, all 6 million that are in their possession with the appropriate redactions. And I have a lot of questions about the volume and the extent of the redactions, even in the 3 million we’ve received.”
- “We haven’t received new materials and there aren’t new subpoenas. However, we do have depositions scheduled with Epstein’s accountant and his attorneys, the attorneys for his estate in the coming weeks. And my hope is, as we go through these 3 million files, that we’ll get information that can help guide the questions we ask of those individuals. One of the things that we have been working very hard to do as oversight Democrats is follow the money, because…we’re not confident that the FBI in their initial investigations of Epstein did a good enough job of following the money. There were millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars involved in this sex trafficking, this child sex trafficking ring. And we need to understand what financial institutions were involved, how were they involved, who knew what was going on. And following the money is the best way to do that.”
- “I think we learned yesterday that there are some high-profile individuals who haven’t been truthful about the extent of their communications and involvement with Epstein, right? Elon Musk, Howard Lutnick, Steve Bannon corresponding with Epstein in 2019…everybody knew what Epstein had done by 2019… And obviously the, it’s fair to say, unverified allegations against President Trump that are included. And some of those have been made public before and have been evaluated by the media and others. Some are new. I think they all deserve scrutiny and we need to run them all down. And if they’re false, okay, they’re false. One of them in the subscript said, you know, the woman who made the allegation was not credible. And I want to learn more about that. As someone who has worked on sexual and domestic violence issues, I have a lot of questions any time an investigator says that a woman coming forward is not credible. So I think we need to explore all of those and understand fully whether they were investigated to the extent they needed to be.”
- “Well, I think one way we could verify and corroborate it or not would be to have some of the FBI’s statements…or the statements that survivors and those making allegations submitted to the FBI. What we have in the files is a summary, a spreadsheet, basically summarizing them. We don’t have the written statements that were taken. We don’t have transcripts of interviews that were conducted. So I think that could help us learn more.”
- “Two things I would say. I want to see the Deputy Attorney General answer that question under oath. And I think perhaps in a future Congress, he’ll be asked to do that. But the other thing, look, the way this administration operates, and I won’t compare it to any other kinds of organizations, but people know what the boss wants. So the boss doesn’t necessarily have to always explicitly direct it. That’s the way this administration operates. And that might have been the case here.”
- “Well, look, Pam Bondi is on the ropes inside the administration. I think that’s been widely reported. The president’s frustrated with her inability to explain the inexplicable, in my opinion. So they’re frustrated with her public appearances. I want to understand, I think the Judiciary Committee Democrats will get to this, why didn’t they follow the law? The law was very clear about the deadline. The law was very clear. That’s right. We’re long past that. The law was very clear about about the redactions. They did not follow the law. They have not followed the law. Why? She needs to be asked that question.”
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