Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said Wednesday on CNN’s “News Central” that President Donald Trump is “hiding something” about the Jeffrey Epstein materials, so the House should move forward with a discharge petition “right away” to force a vote on releasing the files.
Co-host Pamela Brown said, “Republicans, including Senator Josh Hawley, have been calling for Ghislaine Maxwell to come before Congress and testify in public. Is this something you support?”
Jayapal said, “Absolutely. We think that the files should be released. We should have testimony from Maxwell. This is something that Trump supporters for years called for and now all of a sudden, the Trump DOJ, Trump himself is refusing to provide the kind of transparency that he was calling for before he knew what was in the files. So that leads to the question of what are they trying to hide? I think there should be transparency, regardless of who is implicated. I think the president’s switch and bait on this — bait and switch on this has been very telling in terms of why does he not want these files released.”
She continued, “The thing that Congress can do right away is there is a discharge petition from Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna that calls for the release of the files that I think is probably the most important thing that we should do right now. We should look at all the other ways that we can bring about some transparency on this.”
Jayapal added, “I think he is hiding something and he’s just pouring fuel on the fire.”
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