Notice of Intention to Offer Resolution Raising A Question of the Privileges of the House

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina. I thank him for bringing forward this important resolution before the body.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to say that I appreciate the gentleman from Maryland, his commentary about the vote on removal, and his considered judgment with respect to Santos. I agreed with him at the time and made the same points.

I want to align myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Louisiana, but I want to note in doing so--and I think the gentleman from Maryland has shown respect to, I think, the judgment of the gentleman from Louisiana about his being the sole vote on the issue before this body before with respect to what we are making public because of the gentleman's, I think, very real concerns about what it might mean for victims.

We had that debate and a colloquy back and forth in the Committee on the Judiciary a few hours ago, about what we can do to ensure victims are protected and so forth, as we all go forward on what I believe is a unanimous view that we should go seek out truth and justice here with respect to Epstein and anybody associated with him, and them, and the nefarious affairs involving Jeffrey Epstein.

The reason that I support this resolution is--and I would note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle could have tabled this resolution. They chose not to table it. They chose to refer it, which would suggest to me that there is a recognition that something here is not particularly good; that we have a sitting Member, in this case, a Delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who was sitting in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform--and I actually have particular interest here because I was the one doing the questioning. Apparently my questioning was so riveting that she was engaging in text messages back and forth at that moment. While I was questioning Mr. Cohen, the gentlewoman was engaging in this back-and-forth on text messages with Jeffrey Epstein.

Again, I have listened for months as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle disparage and try to impugn the character of the President of the United States and other members of the administration in connection to an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, which the President's administration in 2019 indicted Epstein. They actually moved forward and federally indicted him in 2019. Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested by the Trump administration.

I know the gentleman from Maryland will go on to say that the Biden administration then carried forward that arrest, indictment, and prosecution. True, but it was, in fact, the Trump administration that did what had not been done for a long period of time by taking forward that indictment.

I have been listening to all the preaching by my friends on the other side of the aisle about how any association, anything to do with Jeffrey Epstein, is somehow the dispositive moment here in terms of determining the character of this administration or what they are doing or not doing when they are leaning in to try to seek the truth.

Tens of thousands of pages have been released by Jamie Comer, and 13 subpoenas have all been put out.

Now the House just voted to have greater transparency. Time will tell what that means in terms of what the court does and how they deal with the grand jury secrecy and what they do to continue to redact and protect victims' names under existing laws and how the courts treat that. That is going to be a process, as the gentleman likely knows. This is going to be determined as to what gets released and how.

Here we have the gentlewoman sitting in the Oversight Committee texting with a known convicted felon, a convicted pedophile, that was very public and known, had served jail time, and is engaging not just in texts that were trivial, but texts involving advice about her questioning of Michael Cohen, all designed to figure out how to get Michael Cohen to be able to somehow go after Trump or Trump's advisers or people around the President.

That, to me, is what we talk about with censure, which is contemplated, of course, in our rules and in the structure. The gentleman talked about the Constitution. We are not removing her. We are simply saying censure. We are saying it is censurable conduct to say that this individual sitting on a committee taking advice from a known convicted pedophile, convicted felon, that that is conduct unbecoming of a Member of the United States Congress, engaging in real time, taking advice from someone that we have been listening to--being lectured to as someone deserving of all of the scorn of the entire world. He is. That is why we are here.

If my colleagues didn't think this was a concern, they would have simply made a motion to table, but my colleagues decided to refer it to committee because they know this is a problem. They know this is not the kind of conduct you want in a Member of this body.

I think that the gentleman from South Carolina is right to have brought this forward. I think that the body should hear this debate and that we should vote tonight to censure and refer to the Ethics Committee for further consideration.

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