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Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHIFF. Senator, thank you.
There are lots of extraordinary and suspicious happenings around the Epstein case in the last few months. But just by way of background to those who may not be following each development, you have Epstein at one point describing himself as one of Donald Trump's closest friends. You have Donald Trump saying at one point that he shares a bond with Epstein over their mutual like of attractive women and pointing out that, in the case of Epstein, they tend to be on the younger side. You have the President recently acknowledging he is upset with Jeffrey Epstein for stealing young women from Mar-a-Lago--by Epstein--for purposes that he did not disclose--the President did not disclose.
Tragically, in April, one of those women--one of those children, underage women--working at Mar-a-Lago committed suicide. She was a victim of the Ghislaine Maxwell-Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking. Just this past April, she took her own life. But she was one of those women, apparently, that Trump was upset that Epstein was taking away from him at Mar-a-Lago. It certainly begs the question of, what did Trump think Jeffrey Epstein was doing with these young women he was taking from Mar-a-Lago?
So these are just some of the questions we hope will be answered, but, of course, after promising the MAGA base that he would disclose these files, after Bondi promised and Kash Patel promised and Trump promised, they have reneged on this.
So this is the backdrop in which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche goes to visit the No. 1 coconspirator, Maxwell.
The other background piece of this is that Todd Blanche isn't just some Deputy Attorney General; Todd Blanche is Trump's former criminal defense lawyer. Todd Blanche is the guy who sat in the courtroom in Manhattan helping to defend Donald Trump against the Stormy Daniels allegations against him, for which Donald Trump was convicted of multiple felonies.
As you will remember from the Judiciary Committee when Blanche came for his confirmation hearing, you and I were both concerned about whether Blanche would be able to shed his role as Trump's criminal defense lawyer when he adopted the new role of being the No. 2 person in the Justice Department.
All of this begs the question of, when this very unusual thing happened where the No. 2 person at the Justice Department goes to talk to the coconspirator, this child sex predator, is he acting as Trump's defense lawyer or is he acting as a Deputy AG?
As you were alluding to, if this wasn't bizarre enough, for a top person like that to go interview a witness is unprecedented. For them to do it secretly--and we don't know if this was recorded; we don't know if an FBI agent was present. It would be unthinkable to do this in the absence of an FBI agent taking down the statement, but there is no evidence that took place.
The only thing we do know is that this interview lasted 9 hours, and after the interview, Ghislaine Maxwell got the special treatment of being moved from her prison in Florida to a minimum security prison in Texas that is like a camp, to which sex predators are not supposed to be sent. So why did she get that special treatment?
Finally, one other point I would make before I yield back to you about how unusual all this is, is the defense attorney representing Maxwell is friends, apparently, with Todd Blanche, the Deputy Attorney General, and when Maxwell was asked ``Are you hoping for a pardon out of this? he basically said ``We didn't ask for one, but of course the President has said he has the power to do it.'' They obviously want some special treatment. They are already getting it. But we have no record of any of this.
So, yes, this is so unusual, extraordinary, and unprecedented. And if they think this is going to somehow answer the questions that have been raised by their refusal to turn over these documents, it is the furthest thing from that, wouldn't you say?
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Mr. SCHIFF. Can I make one last point, with your indulgence?
One other extraordinary fact about this is that none of the prosecutors who actually worked on prosecuting Maxwell were present. The reason you would want them there is, they know the facts. Blanche doesn't know the facts. So when you are interrogating this person, when you are taking their statement, you want somebody who knows the facts, who can attest to whether they are being forthcoming, telling the truth or not.
Also, a defense lawyer representing 20 of the Epstein victims asked to be present, and they were turned down.
This just stinks to high heaven.
I yield to my colleague from Maryland.
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