MAGA Congressman Mike Haridopolos got shut down after trying to downplay the significance of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Haridopolos defended the Trump administration’s failure to release all the Epstein files on a CNN panel Wednesday while insisting they weren’t that important anyway.
“Well, let’s just be clear about where we’re at and why. For four years, no one cared. Ro Khanna, no interest, Massie in our party – I guess he’s still in our party – had no interest in this issue,” Haridopolos said on CNN This Morning.
“Suddenly, the president comes in. We’re here because Donald Trump kept this issue alive, and I’ve actually talked to some of the people who are involved in the acquisition of all this material. It’s voluminous, we’re talking millions and millions of pages,” he continued.
Host Audie Cornish quickly interrupted him to call out his false claims.
“Can I stop you there? You are, in fact, here because Donald Trump kept this issue alive, and now people don’t believe his administration is following through on its promises of transparency,” she said.
She then questioned him about the fact that several names of individuals who appear to have been involved in criminal activity have been redacted; at the same time, some victim identifying information has been made public.
“So make it make sense for a victim who says, ‘Well, wait a second, out of all the things that have been released, it’s been a couple of our names, a couple of our bodies, and meanwhile there are redacted names of men who may have been co-conspirators,” Cornish said. “Those things are still under wraps.”
The Florida congressman responded sarcastically that he was “very happy to hear everyone has found religion on this because no one gave a crap for four years.”
“The Democrats said nothing to see here, nothing to see here, and now they took it on,” he claimed. “We’re here and we’re getting the information out. This is a huge amount of information, and there’s going to be mistakes when you have this much information out there and it looks like folks are finally being called on the carpet for it, which I think is good.”
Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright interrupted him, saying “Congressman, respectfully, it took a forced bipartisan vote for the information to be released, and now that has there was tremendous pressure in order for DOJ to continue to release the file.”
“So it wasn’t like the campaign promises made by Vance and others who said, ‘we’re going to release the files on my desk.’ It wasn’t like they just willy-nilly decided to release them. There’s a force effort,” Seawright continued.
“Here’s my direct question for you: Will the information that is found in the files, will Republicans take an honest oversight approach and hold folks accountable when they find out that there may be people in the Republican circles that are in the files in a disgusting way?” Seawright asked.
Haridopolos once again blamed Democrats for the Epstein files controversy.
“Why didn’t we have this conversation on CNN for four years when Joe Biden was president?” he said. “Why not? I don’t understand that.”
Seawright responded, “Republicans campaigned on wanting to do this.”
“No, no, no, no. For four years, no one cared. I looked it up,” Haridopolos claimed.
The Trump administration found itself in the Epstein firestorm after the DOJ and FBI issued a joint memo asserting that Epstein had no “client list” and died by suicide in his jail cell in 2019.
MAGA erupted over the memo, as for years, right-wing personalities, including current FBI director Kash Patel and former deputy director Dan Bongino, peddled conspiracy theories about Epstein, largely focusing on his death and the alleged client list.
The House and Senate nearly unanimously passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act last year, signed into law by President Trump, to release “all” of its files related to Epstein while keeping victims’ names and identifying information private.
The House and Senate voted nearly unanimously last month to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the DOJ to release “all” of its files related to Epstein while keeping victims’ names and identifying information private by Dec. 19.
Over one month after the deadline, the DOJ said earlier this month that it had released everything it had related to Epstein.
Haridopolos attempted to further defend the Trump administration for missing the legal deadline on releasing the files by saying no administration had ever handled a task of that magnitude.
“So you say you deserve points, points for participation,” Cornish responded. “It feels like points for participation.”
“I don’t want any points on anything,” Haridopolos cried. “Yeah, I wish this thing never happened. This is, what’s happened to these boys and girls is horrific and these people who manipulated the system. Epstein manipulated people on their ego, this isn’t all an ego play. He’s a concierge to the stars. He gets them planes or fancy island trips, and these people are suckers and played it. And I’m glad to see them exposed.”
The post CNN Panel Goes After MAGA Congressman for Downplaying Epstein Files appeared first on The Daily Beast.
