00:00So who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump?
00:07To flag records for President Trump?
00:09To flag any records which included his name.
00:13I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator.
00:17Eventually you're going to have to answer for your conduct in this.
00:20You won't do it today, but eventually you will. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
00:24That was my only involvement, and I made that very clear,
00:28and I'm very proud of everything I've done with anti-human trafficking.
00:32Obviously, in preparing any advice for the President on a jet or anything else,
00:37we consult with the Office of Legal Counsel.
00:40The confidentiality applies to their input as well.
00:44And, Chairman, if you would approve and vote to approve,
00:48as Chairman Grassley said, excuse me, ranking member,
00:50as Chairman Grassley said, my employees, we would answer your letters a lot faster.
00:55Yet you're stalling them at every stop.
00:58And to go back to your previous question,
01:02your city has a murder rate five times higher than New York's.
01:08571 homicides last year.
01:12If you were serious about protecting your people,
01:15you would be asking this administration for help.
01:19You're saying that we're coming into your state and your city?
01:23We're there to help make America safe and Illinois safe,
01:28whether or not you want to.
01:32I believe cutting federal grant programs to law enforcement in my state
01:36and across the nation does not make us any safer, and you've done just that.
01:40You've supplanted that decision by sending in National Guard troops to California
01:46and other places.
01:47That is a situation where the governors have not asked for that help.
01:51If you truly wanted to do this on a bipartisan basis,
01:54you wouldn't defy a governor.
01:55You would work with them.
01:56I'm prepared to do that.
01:58I'm prepared to work with this administration.
02:00But cutting these grants to law enforcement does not make us any stronger as a nation
02:04or give us the tools we need to reduce crime in Chicago.
02:08Now, I'd just like to ask you,
02:09when it came to this Cutter situation,
02:11did you consult with the ethics office in the Department of Justice
02:15before making your decision on this gift of a jet?
02:20Chairman, I didn't gift a jet to anyone.
02:24My office of legal counsel provides confidential advice to the president,
02:32to the White House, period.
02:34And you're conflating two issues, cutting grants.
02:38I was very clear about what grants we've cut and what grants we haven't, only 7%.
02:43And if you have a grant in Illinois that you think that I've cut
02:48that is protecting law enforcement officers or your people,
02:52you personally call me, and I will work with you to turn that grant back on.
02:57I think many of the Democrats here can tell you,
02:59I have worked with them to turn grants back on.
03:02There's an appeal process.
03:03Tell me a specific grant that I have turned off in Illinois
03:07that would help law enforcement, and I will work with you.
03:11But you have not done that.
03:13And again, the National Guard is on the way right now as we speak.
03:17Oh, by the way, so is Director Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
03:21You're sitting here grilling me,
03:22and they're on their way to Chicago to keep your state safe.
03:26Madam Attorney General, it's my job to grill you.
03:28The investigation of your agency is part of my responsibility in this committee.
03:35You may not like the experience, but others have weathered the storm
03:38and answered questions in a respectful manner.
03:41Can you tell me the grants, ranking member, please?
03:43Take a look at the President's budget on Hyda grants,
03:46what happens to it in his proposed budget.
03:48I'd be glad to meet with you on the grant.
03:50It's cut by one-third, from $300 million to $196.
03:56That's one example of a grant that works,
03:59and your administration has suggested cutting it, and the budget lies ahead.
04:03I want to ask you about items in a letter I sent you in July that you have not answered.
04:08In February, you made a public claim that the Epstein client list was, quote,
04:12sitting on my desk right now for review, end of quote.
04:16You then produced already public information and no client list at a major media event hosted at the White House.
04:22Attorney General Bondi, why did you publicly claim to have the Epstein client list waiting for your review
04:27and then produced nothing relevant to that claim?
04:30Senator Durbin, if you listened to my entire clip on that, I said I had not reviewed it yet,
04:38that it was sitting on my desk along with the JFK files, the Martin Luther King files,
04:44and I said I had not yet reviewed it.
04:47And if you see our memo on Epstein, you will see, excuse me,
04:52our memo on Epstein clearly points out that there was no client list, our July 6 memo.
04:58You also didn't let me respond to the HIDA question.
05:01The budget transfers $196 million for high-intensity drug trafficking areas to the Office of Justice Programs, OJP.
05:11The Justice Department will continue to administer those grants under OJP in 2026.
05:20Going back to the Epstein files, according to another whistleblower who made a protected disclosure to my office,
05:27you pushed the FBI to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records on an arbitrarily short deadline in March,
05:35and the FBI was directed to flag any documents that mentioned President Trump.
05:39Nothing came of that review until July when DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memo stating, quote,
05:45there's no incriminating client list.
05:47Why was the July 7 memo unsigned?
05:50The July 7 memo came from the FBI and the Department of Justice.
05:56Director Patel answered those questions very clear.
05:59And, you know, Senator Durbin, I find it very interesting that you refused repeated Republican requests
06:05to release the Epstein flight logs in 2023 and 2024.
06:10You fought that.
06:12Did you take money from Reid Hoffman campaign donations?
06:15Who was a huge Epstein friend?
06:18Why did you fight for years?
06:21Why did you fight to not disclose the flight logs, Senator Durbin?
06:27I can tell you I did not refuse.
06:29One of the senators here wished to produce those logs, and I asked her to put it in writing, and she never did.
06:35Yeah, I think Senator Blackburn would quarrel with you on that.
06:37What I will quarrel with you is to Reid somebody that you mentioned I never heard of.
06:41Reid Hoffman.
06:42So who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump?
06:48To flag records for President Trump?
06:52To flag any records which included his name.
06:56I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator.
06:59Eventually you're going to have to answer for your conduct in this.
07:03You won't do it today, but eventually you will.
07:05I yield, Mr. Chairman.
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