GOP Senator Comes Right Out and Admits He Wants to Give Trump Political ‘Cover’ On the Epstein Files

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) objected to an amendment to release the Epstein files from Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) during a floor debate on Thursday. Mullin also blocked Gallego’s attempt last week to force Attorney General Pam Bondi to immediately release the documents in her possession.

This time around, however, Mullin explicitly said he was trying to “give him cover” – referring to President Donald Trump, who the Oklahoma Republican argued would be unfairly attacked by members of Congress if they got hold of the files.

“It’s interesting that my colleague wants to continue talking about the elites, but the elites were the ones that actually covered up the last four years of the Biden administration,” Mullin began, offering a lengthy bit of whataboutism before addressing the Epstein files.

“I mean, think about what happened during the Biden administration. They covered up one, his cognitive behavior. Two, they covered up the Hunter Biden laptop. Three, they covered up the Russiagate and continue to cover up Russiagate. And four, they’ve covered up the fact that an auto pen signed every one of his papers except one. Where was the cover-up? Where did the leaks come from? Well, it’s because of the pressure from the Biden administration that actually did put it on the leak on all the social media outlets,” Mullin fumed.

Later in his speech, he said, “What my colleague’s resolution does is truly trying to tell the FBI and the DOJ how they can proceed in doing their job, and how they can actually present the information, basically saying that we want all that information to go through Congress,” he added:

Well, I’m sure Congress has never once played politics with any information. I’m sure that this investigation will be handled much like other investigations into this administration that the Democrats have done over the last, I don’t know, eight years?

I’m sure this would be handled just like any other thing that they’ve tried to go after, like the baseless impeachments, or the baseless special counsels, or the unbelievable amount of charges they’ve tried to file against the president. I’m sure this would be handled the exact same way. What we’re simply wanting to do here is give him cover.

So if my colleague from Arizona actually wants transparency, then he would drop his objection to my resolution and just simply have mine go through, and we can move forward with the transparency that maybe both of us actually want. So therefore I object to combining them. I would ask my colleague once again to accept my resolution.

Gallego replied to Mullin, “Let’s just say we’re here. The political theater was started more than eight years ago. Political theater started just five months ago when the president said, after appointing his attorney general, that they’re going to release the Epstein files. When the attorney general said, ‘I have those files right here. I’m going to show them to you.’ And then all of a sudden, the shenanigans started. All of a sudden, you know, the files are gone.”

After Gallego’s full reply, Mullin responded by offering to work with the Arizona Democrat on a joint motion to release the files, but one that did not include forcing the executive branch to turn over information to Congress – only judges.

“In closing, I would just simply say, well, maybe my colleague from Arizona and I can work together if he wants to, and we can drop some of the stuff in his resolution. Maybe we can come up with a conclusion with my resolution, where I have concerns about yours blurring the lines between the separation of powers, and at the same time wanting transparency. If we can both agree we want transparency, then we’ve worked together on several issues in the past. Let’s sit down and try working this one out,” Mullin said.

Later, both senators took to social media and blamed the other party for objecting to their move to release the files:

Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.