Thomas Massey

and to give these women a platform to tell their stories.

And in fact, women who had never spoken up before came to this and spoke up.

And women who had fought all their lives to be heard and believed and to say their story, and they gave witness to the FBI and it all got suppressed, they came and told their stories.

And a strange thing happened.

I had intended to motivate my colleagues and I was brought to tears by their stories and became doubly motivated to get this done because at that point, it became more about justice for them than even before.

And somebody may say, well, that sounds pretty cold.

You mean you weren't doing it for them to start with?

Well, I was doing it to uncover the creeps, right?

And the pedophiles and the rapists and the sex traffickers.

But once I met the survivors, it became even more personal to get justice for them.

Well, of course, it's less academic and more real.

So I actually had at least a dozen co-sponsors on my Epstein Files Transparency Act.

And I thought, well, I'll get a dozen, by the way, dozen Republican co-sponsors.

I thought, well, this will be easy.

I've already got a dozen who will sign the discharge petition.

Well, it turns out most of those people chickened out, would not sign the discharge petition under pressure from the president.

In fact, I ran into the legislative affairs director for the White House on the street on Independence Avenue, Jeff Freeland, just randomly saying,

While I was trying to get more signatures and while he was trying to keep people from signing it, we just randomly met at a crosswalk.

And I said, listen, I know what's your job.

I know you're just doing your job and I'll be with you 90% of the time.