A Democratic lawmaker accused House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) of carrying out a coverup of the Jeffrey Epstein case to protect President Donald Trump from accountability.
The committee released more than 33,000 pages of Epstein-related materials Comer had subpoenaed from the Department of Justice, but his Democratic colleagues say the vast majority of those documents were already public, and Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) say the Kentucky Republican was engaged in "dirty work" on behalf of the White House.
"Welcome to the 'Comer coverup,'" Moskowitz said. "You know, I mean, we've been gone for six weeks, he just releases 30,000 pages the day before a vote. He could have released it, you know, over the last six weeks, but they waited just enough, they held these documents from the public, they held on to them so they could release them the day of the petition. Why don't they want the petition to pass? What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?"
"Those are obviously the questions that the American people have, and then you've got James Comer who's in charge of this whole thing," Moskowitz added. "You know, this is a guy who took information from a Chinese informant, he lost an informant, he took Russian disinformation in his last investigation. So this is the 'Comer coverup.' I mean, look, he didn't come up with this idea on his own – he's not that bright – but he's obviously executing the plan that the White House has come up for him."
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) have begun collecting signatures on a discharge petition forcing a vote on the full release of the Epstein documents, but Moskowitz said Comer was trying to offer just enough to satisfy the public while shielding the president's alleged involvement with the late financier's crimes.
"Here's what they're going to do," Moskowitz said. "They're going to pass a rule, okay, which we pass every week. We're up here in Congress, when you're in the majority you pass a rule. The rule is what allows the bills to move or resolutions to move for the week. The opposite party always votes against the rule, so whether we were in charge and they were in charge, right, the other side, the minority votes against the rule. In this rule, they put this Epstein thing in there, so they want to say, 'Oh, Democrats are now voting against it.' They want to message that, right? They also want to say, 'Look, all of our Republicans voted for full disclosure.' It's not true. Comer actually is the one who gets to decide what to release, Comer is the one who gets to decide what to redact on his own, and so there is no transparency."
"There are no hearings – where are the hearings?" Moskowitz added. "Bring in the witnesses. He's burying these depositions in the basement so nobody hears from any of these witnesses, and then he's going to issue some report. Comer lost the trust of the American people in his fake faux Biden impeachment scam, and now you got the 'Comer coverup' when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. He's doing the White House's dirty work, looking for the president's endorsement on his way to trying to become the governor of Kentucky."