Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) lays out the connections between Trump, Russia, and Epstein (transcript included)

NOTE: This transcript now appears in the Senate section of the official Congessional Record of March 5, 2026, pages 18 - 23, with Sen. Whitehouse's own list of sources appended.

The following is the YouTube transcript which I cleaned up, checked for errors, lightly edited for readability, verified spelling of proper names via Wikipedia, and added links to any quotes that I checked myself.

(EDITED to add links to individuals mentioned, correct placement of quotes, and insert links to original articles where I could find them online)

I found myself doing it anyway just for me, to keep track of who's who, and then I realized I might as well do it for you as well.

This is an unparalleled speech: while the substance of it might be available elsewhere and I've just missed it, Sen. Whitehouse has answered a lot of questions in my mind about not just the links between Trump, Russia, and Epstein -- and William Barr as one of many links -- but also about the recording equipment and blackmail angle that is present in so many survivor accounts and so noticeably absent everywhere else.

It's truly worth listening to, but if you can't sit still that long, here's the transcript.

Thank you, Madam President.

It was the spring of 2019. Public and media interest in special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russia's election interference operation reached a fever pitch. There had been a steady drip, drip, drip of reporting on the Trump team's cozy and peculiar relationship with Russia.

Since his surprise election victory in 2016, ahead of the Mueller report's release, Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr, issued a letter to Congress purporting to summarize the report's findings. The letter declared that Russia and the Trump campaign did not collude to steal the election. The press, ravenous for any news of the long-anticipated Mueller report's conclusion, largely accepted Attorney General Barr's narrow, carefully worded conclusion and, not yet having access to the full report, blasted the attorney general's summary around the world.

Trump himself declared, all caps, NO COLLUSION. He said he had been cleared of the Russia "hoax," a term he reserves only to describe things that are true, like climate change.

Frustrated, Mueller wrote to Barr that the attorney general's letter did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of the investigation. But by the time the dense, voluminous Mueller report was issued the month after Barr's letter, its message had been obscured. The Mueller report actually concluded that the Trump campaign knew of and welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it.

That conclusion was later echoed and reinforced by an investigation led by then-chairman Marco Rubio's Senate Intelligence Committee, a bipartisan report.

But Barr's scheme had largely worked. Many in the media and in the Democratic Party seemed to internalize that the Russia speculation had perhaps gotten out of hand, and that perhaps we had been wrong to believe there was a troubling connection between Trump and Russia after all.

But were we? Let's take a look at a sampling of what Trump has done for Russia just lately, and usually at the expense of American interests. There are many, but here's a top 10.

One, after Trump and Vice President Vance theatrically chastised the heroic Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in front of TV cameras in the Oval Office last year, Trump paused our weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Two, in July, during the worst Russian bombing campaign of the war until that point, Trump paused an already funded weapons shipment for Ukraine, including the Patriot interceptors that protect civilians from Putin's savage attacks.

Three, that same month, Trump's Treasury Department stopped imposing new sanctions and closing sanctions loopholes, effectively allowing dummy corporations to send funds, chips, and military equipment to Russia.

Four, leaked phone calls show that White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev have worked together closely behind the scenes on a peace deal favorable to Russia.

Five, last summer, Trump rolled out the presidential red carpet for the Russian dictator on American soil. with a summit in Alaska that yielded unsurprisingly no gains toward ending the war in Ukraine.

Six, Trump's vice president traveled to the Munich Security Conference last year to parrot Russia's anti-western talking points pushed by right-wing groups that Putin has long funded and used to create political strife in Europe.

Seven, Trump installed Russia apologist Tulsi Gabbard as his director of national intelligence, much to the glee of Russian state media.

Eight, upon the confirmation of Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice shuttered its anti-kleptocracy work that had successfully targeted Putin's Russian oligarchs.

Nine, late last year, Trump unveiled a new so-called national security strategy which abandoned traditional alliances in Europe and favored a transactional foreign policy that the Kremlin praised as quote "largely consistent" with Moscow's vision and desires.

And ten, the Trump administration is even paving the way for Russia's return to global sports competition, ending its isolation in those arenas in the wake of the hostile Ukraine invasion and state-backed systemic doping programs in Russia.

That's a Top 10, but the list goes on. If Trump were purposefully doing Russia's bidding, it is hard to see what he would be doing differently.

The United States is the most powerful nation in the world. Russia is a weak, corrupt regime. My old friend, Senator John McCain, used to say that Russia is a gas station run by gangsters with an army. It doesn't make sense that the president of the United States, who insists insists on being dominant in essentially every relationship, is so submissive to one person, and that one person is Russia's dictator, Vladimir Putin.

So, what is it about Trump and Russia? And could it have any connection with Trump's close friendship with the deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?

Much about Epstein remains unknown, but the survivors who have come forward, and the millions of emails released through the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, have shed some light on the operation of the late financier's global pedophile ring, and over and over it touches Russia.

When recently asked by a reporter about the Epstein files, Trump said in part, "It's just a Russia, Russia, Russia hoax." Again, hoax, the word he uses for when something is true. But the most telling part is that Trump's mind, asked about Epstein, immediately went to Russia. "Russia, Russia, Russia."

I should start by pointing out that Epstein's ties to foreign intelligence may never be fully known. It's a murky world. He had links to officials in the United States, Russian and Israeli governments, and many others. But it's worth looking at those ties to Russia, a nation so hostile to the United States.

Epstein's career began in the mid 1970s at the prestigious Dalton School in New York City, where despite dropping out of college, 21-year-old Jeffrey Epstein was given a position teaching high school mathematics to the children of some of New York's wealthiest families. Perhaps of note, the outgoing headmaster at the time of Epstein's hire was Donald Barr, the father of future Attorney General Bill Barr and a former intelligence officer during World War II. The elder Barr was known for making unconventional hires at Dalton.

After a couple of years, Epstein was able to leverage the elite connections he made at Dalton to a job at Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns, where he rose quickly through the company. However, after getting caught fabricating his resume, using the company credit card on expensive gifts for his girlfriend, and ultimately providing privileged stock information to a girlfriend, among other unscrupulous behaviors, Epstein called it quits and started his own financial firm.

Those early scams were just the start. Shortly thereafter, Epstein fell in with a wealthy man named Douglas Leese, a British defense contractor with connections in the arms industry and the British government. During this period, Epstein would tell people he was a bounty hunter who tracked down hidden money. According to Steven Hoffenberg, a former business mentor of Epstein's who went to prison for a massive Ponzi scheme that he later said Epstein had designed, Leese introduced Epstein to Robert Maxwell. Ghislaine Maxwell, who became Epstein's girlfriend and sex trafficking accomplice after her father's death, was Robert Maxwell's favorite daughter, and he involved her deeply in his work.

An opportunist in pursuit of wealth, the Czechoslovakia-born Robert Maxwell had complex shifting ties to British, Soviet, and Israeli intelligence. Initially bankrolled by MI6, he accepted secret payments from the KGB through his Soviet-friendly publishing company, and was the rare individual who traversed both sides of the Iron Curtain.

In 1992, the British newspaper, The Sunday Express, wrote that a secret document, signed by the head of the KGB months before Maxwell's death at sea, showed that Maxwell was a political and intelligence asset for the Soviet Union. The newspaper claimed that the document indicated Soviet leadership had instructed the KGB to protect Maxwell's reputation and business activities. Maxwell's UK foreign office file, released more than a decade after his death, described him as, I'm quoting here, "a thoroughly bad character and almost certainly financed by Russia."

Journalist Vicky Ward wrote the following in Rolling Stone magazine in 2021. She said, "Hoffenberg told me that Epstein had said he'd worked on several projects with Robert Maxwell, including solving Maxwell's 'debt' issues." The word debt is in quotes.

"Maxwell died in 1991 under very strange circumstances, apparently having fallen off his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, in the middle of the night. And it was discovered in the aftermath that he'd stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from the pensions of his employees."

The story continued. "Epstein had also told Hoffenberg that via Maxwell and Leese, he was involved in something that Hoffenberg described as 'national security issues,' which he says involved 'blackmail, influence trading, trading information at a level that is very serious and dangerous.'"

The story concluded, "Four separate sources told me — on the record — that Epstein’s dealings in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis." End quote.

Epstein's strategies for making money and working intelligence contacts seem to have some similarities to Robert Maxwell. For the record, Epstein, a profligate liar, once told Ward that he never met Robert Maxwell or Leese.

At some point in the 1980s, Epstein struck up a friendship with a fellow brash New York businessman by the name of Donald Trump. Author Michael Wolff has said of Trump and Epstein, "They shared everything. They shared their airplanes. They shared women between them. They shared, constantly, business and financial advice." End quote. There are many photos of the two men together on the New York and Palm Beach party circuits throughout the 1990s. Trump now famously said in 2002, "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do and many of them are on the younger side."

Alan Dershowitz told the New York Times in 2019 (archive link here) that, "In those days, if you didn’t know Trump and you didn’t know Epstein, you were a nobody." Dershowitz is the well-known lawyer who served both on Epstein's defense team when he was charged with having sex with minors back in 2006, and on Trump's impeachment defense team in 2020.

The president of Trump's Atlantic City Trump Plaza Hotel in the late 1980s said he saw Trump and Epstein together so frequently that he believed Epstein was Trump's best friend. That same man described an incident where Trump brought Epstein and a 19-year-old girl to the casino gaming floor.

Epstein once took a model to Trump Tower where she says Trump groped her while laughing with Epstein. She remarked that it seemed like a twisted game between the two men.

One survivor says Epstein summoned her to his offices late one night. Trump soon arrived and according to the New York Times, she recalled feeling scared as Mr. Trump stared at her bare legs. Then Mr. Epstein entered the room and she recalled him saying to Mr. Trump, "No, no, she's not here for you." After the men left the room, she said she overheard Trump commenting that he thought she was 16 years old.

In 1992, Trump hosted a calendar girls competition at Mar-a-Lago for dozens of young women. The event organizer was appalled to learn that Trump and Epstein would be the only men present.

At a private showing during during Maxwell's trial, one of Epstein's victims said he took her to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14.

Maxwell recruited 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre from the spa at Mar-a-Lago. Giuffre was abused by Epstein and trafficked to other men in Epstein's orbit. Trump said in 2025, "I think Giuffre worked at the spa. He stole her." He being Epstein.

In 1997, the UK tabloid The Daily Mirror, formerly owned by Robert Maxwell, claimed that Trump was dating a 20-year-old British model and that Ghislaine Maxwell had introduced them at a party. The tabloid notes Trump met the model at a party in Manhattan. Several American millionaires already had their eyes on the model, but she was there with Robert Maxwell's daughter, Ghislaine, who has introduced several of her attractive friends to the property developer, Trump.

According to the Mirror, after their meeting, Trump flew Madame Maxwell and the model south to the Sunshine State, where they enjoyed a happy weekend together. When they returned to New York, the model was installed in one of Donald's many apartments there. In an interview with BBC Newsnight, the model stated, "Ghislaine Maxwell did introduce me to him, that is Trump, and she introduced me to him with a clear message of my being with him in the same way that she had trafficked me and brought me to Jeffrey Epstein." End quote. She also said, "I can only speak for myself, and this in no this is in no way to negate any other experience that anyone else might have had with him, but at no time did President Trump behave with any impropriety with me." The same woman accused Epstein of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager in a 2019 interview with NBC. From NBC, I'm quoting, "The abuse spanned several years and locales. In addition to the estate on his private island, she said Epstein preyed on her at his homes in New York and Paris."

According to Craig Unger's book, American Kompromat, and I'm quoting here, "Trump was often the center of Maxwell's attention. And women who entered Trump's orbit sometimes ended up being associated with both Trump and Epstein, spending part of their time living in a Trump Tower condo and part in Florida at Mar-a-Lago or one of Epstein's homes. Among them was a Russian model and beauty pageant contestant, whose journey from the world of beauty pageants and modeling to Trump's Mar-a-Lago and Epstein's island retreat is highly suggestive in terms of how Epstein and his associates began manipulating young women."

The story continues. "In the early nineties, before coming to the United States, the woman had placed well in a number of beauty pageants, coming in second in Miss Russia 1993, and winning the 1994 Miss Baltic Sea title that year. In 1995, she left Moscow, spent six weeks learning English in St. Petersburg. That's St. Petersburg, Florida, not Russia, and she was profiled in the Tampa Tribune as reigning Miss Russia. And before long, she met Donald Trump." Quoting here, "Notwithstanding the fact that Trump was still married to his second wife, Marla Maples, the woman moved into a 30th floor condo in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. There, according to an item in the New York Post, her lavish accommodations were taken care of 'courtesy of an unidentified sugar daddy.' . . . She spent time with both Trump and Epstein. Flight logs released by a federal judge in New York in 2019 showed that in February 1999, the woman, then 27, flew on board Epstein's Gulfstream, the so-called Lolita Express, with Maxwell and Prince Andrew, from Epstein's Little St. James, aka Pedophile Island, back to Florida." End quote.

Trump has tried to distance himself from his former friend, the monstrous pedophile who was believed to have abused at least a thousand women and girls. It's worth taking a look at how the friendship between Trump and Epstein allegedly soured.

There are varying accounts as to whether Trump ever banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago over his recruitment of spa workers from the resort. But we know the falling out was at least in part related to a bidding war between Trump and Epstein over a Palm Beach mansion in 2004. Trump won and purchased the property for $41.3 million. Just four years later and after modest renovations, Trump sold the mansion to billionaire Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million. At the time, it was reported to be to be the most expensive residential property sale in United States history. Pretty stellar investment for Mr. Trump. The oligarch, for his part, after paying the $95 million, never even moved in.

Which brings us back to Russia. Epstein claimed to have given at least some insight on Trump to the Russians. Epstein met on many occasions with Vitaly Churkin, Russia's representative to the United Nations from 2006 until Churkin's death in 2017. Epstein wrote in an email, "Churkin was great. He understood Trump after our conversations. It is not complex. He must be seen to get something. It's that simple." End quote.

Epstein wrote in 2018 to Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway who was then head of the Council of Europe. I'm quoting here. "I think you might suggest to Putin that Lavrov can get insight on talking to me." That appears to be a reference to Sergey Lavrov, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. The email was sent prior to the Helsinki summit between Trump and Putin.

In another email to Jagland, Epstein wrote that he wanted to help Putin and Russia reinvent the financial system. A 2017 FBI report based on a confidential human source claims that "Epstein was President Vladimir Putin's wealth manager." End quote.

Epstein tried several times to meet with Putin, often via Jagland, although it is unclear if any such meeting took place. But Putin is named almost a thousand times in the latest tranche of Epstein file documents, and there are almost 10,000 references in the documents to Moscow.

Epstein roped many Russian and East European girls and women into his trafficking operation. The New York Magazine profile of Epstein, published all the way back in 2002, reads, "Indeed, at a party at Maxwell's house, her friends say, one is just as apt to see Russian ladies of the night as one is to see Prince Andrew." End quote.

In Ward's 2003 Vanity Fair profile of Epstein, (archive link here) a guest described a quote "cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended which was filled, she says, with young Russian models."

In a 2010 email, Epstein suggested a young woman as a dinner companion to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, assuring him that she was, and I'm quoting here, "Russian, beautiful, and trustworthy." End quote.

The Daily Beast recently reported on an alleged classified US intelligence document claiming that, and I'm quoting here, "Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was drawn into Moscow's orbit thanks to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which the Kremlin allegedly used as a route into the British establishment."

In another 2010 email to a person whose name has been redacted, Epstein wrote, and I'm quoting here, "Tomorrow I'm organizing a dinner for some new Russian girls. See you at 10."

He received an email from a redacted sender in 2012 that read, "I have two Russian girls for you to meet. One 21, another 24."

A message left for Epstein by one of his employees in 2005 claims that French model scout Jean Luc Brunel had found a teacher who could give Epstein quote free lessons. Quote, "He has a teacher for you to teach how to speak Russian. She is 2x8 years old, not blonde." End quote. Two times eight years old.

According to American Kompromat, in addition to whatever legitimate careers Brunel may have fostered as a model scout, he also allegedly hired scouters to identify, procure, and transport underage girls, many 15 years of age and under. He hired them to give quote "massages" and traffic them. Brunel was found hanged in his French jail cell in 2022 after being arrested on rape and sex trafficking charges.

Bill Gates appears, said he had affairs with two Russian women which Epstein later discovered.

Somewhere along the way, Epstein struck up a relationship with Sergei Belyakov, Russia's former deputy minister of economic development and a graduate of the FSB, Russia's intelligence academy. Epstein introduced him to contacts like Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, who would go on to give $10 million to the super PAC that helped elect now-Vice President J.D. Vance to the Senate in 2022.

In 2015, Epstein warned Belyakov that, I'm quoting here, "A Russian girl from Moscow is attempting to blackmail a group of powerful businessmen in New York." End quote. It was, Epstein said, quoting again, "bad for business for everyone involved." Belyakov responded back with information about the woman who he said worked in the sex and escort business. The FSB Academy graduate said he would meet with someone who knows her.

The following year, Belyakov told Epstein that he had a new position at the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian sovereign wealth fund headed by current Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, the same guy who was caught in those friendly leaked phone calls with Steve Witkoff that I mentioned earlier.

Masha Drokova, a former spokesperson for Nashi, the pro-Kremlin Youth Movement, was in regular touch with Epstein in the last couple of years before his death in prison. She was ostensibly helping Epstein with his public relations.

According to the Washington Post, she was quote "the subject of the 2011 documentary Putin's Kiss, whose title refers to a widely publicized awards ceremony in which she received a medal from Putin and spontaneously kissed him on the cheek." End quote. In a 2017 email, Drokova asked Epstein to connect her with "adequate Russian oligarchs." The Post reported in 2022 that her fundraising pitches highlighted her ties to wealthy Russians.

Although Drokova denied writing those emails and said she did not receive Russian funding, Epstein advised Drokova as she launched her Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and she introduced Epstein to the contacts she had made in the tech world.

In one emailed interaction in 2017, Drokova, after claiming to meet billionaire Jeff Bezos, tells Epstein she is quote "trying to understand what she is not understanding about him," end quote. Epstein writes back that Bezos is quote "Smart, funny, and visionary. He's a very nice person," probalty is mistyped, but obviously means "probably the best in the valley amongst the Bs."

The files also indicate that Epstein had dealings with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire whom the Treasury Department has identified as a money launderer for Vladimir Putin.

Deripaska also cultivated a friendship with Peter Mandelson, a senior figure in Britain's Labour Party. It appears that Mandelson tried to use Deripaska's contacts to acquire a last-minute Russian visa for Epstein in 2010. Correspondence also shows Epstein's assistant trying to set up a meeting for Epstein and Deripaska in Moscow or Paris.

There's also audio of Epstein advising then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to have dinner with Putin to line up work after he leaves government.

There is at least one itinerary for a lengthy trip across Russia and photos of Epstein and Ghislaine in what is believed to be Russia, including with people who appear to be Russian soldiers.

Umar Dzhabrailov, a former Russian senator who committed suicide in recent days, described Maxwell as a soulmate.

Epstein had a series of Russian visas between 2011 and his death in 2019. Epstein's crimes left a long money trail, and that trail winds back to Russia.

Ranking member of the finance committee, Ron Wyden, has doggedly sought the truth about Epstein's transactions with Russian banks and Eastern European entities. One suspicious activity report filed by JP Morgan Chase after Epstein's death shows that between 2003 and 2019, Epstein conducted $4,725 wire transactions totaling over $1 billion.

And that's just one bank. Epstein used multiple banks.

According to JP Morgan Chase, the wire activity was flagged for the suspicious activity report for being, and I quote, "consistent with alleged sex trafficking of minors" and for involving quote "the high-risk jurisdiction of the Russian Federation," end quote. CNN notes that two accounts, including in the suspicious activity report, were linked to now sanctioned Russian banks, Alfa Bank and Sberbank. Also named in the suspicious activity reports: Maxwell, associated entities like Brunel's MC2 Model Management, and various women and girls.

Let's go back to the journalist Vicky Ward. "Sources, who range from former arms dealers to former spies — and also Hoffenberg — suggest that Epstein, who lacked any sort of moral compass, decided to go one step further and compromise influential people by recording them doing things they wouldn’t want made public."

"And once he got out of jail, in the last 10 years of his life, Epstein bragged to various people, including journalists, that he was advising a whole assortment of foreign leaders who included Vladimir Putin, Mohammed bin Zayed, Mohammed Bin Salman, various African dictators, Israel, the British — and, of course, the Americans. He also told several of the same people that he was making a fortune out of arms, drugs, and diamonds." I'm still reading the same quote. "He was known in the intelligence world as a 'hyper-fixer,' somebody who can go between different cultures and networks."

Epstein was of course known for his parties, which he insisted on hosting in his various mansions where he could completely control the environment. Many of Epstein's victims have said they believe they were recorded. Virginia Giuffre wrote in her posthumous memoir that Epstein had a huge library of videotapes and a room in his New York home where monitors displayed real-time surveillance footage from his properties. Quote, "He explicitly talked about using me, and what I'd been forced to do with certain men, as a form of blackmail so these men would owe him favors," she wrote.

Another survivor said Epstein once walked her through his mansion, pointing out pinhole-sized cameras. He boasted that they were in every room. According to Epstein's emails, in 2014, he directed a staffer to procure hidden cameras which were installed in tissue boxes. The New York Times obtained photos of the interior of Epstein's New York mansion, which show a camera installed near the ceiling of the master bedroom and another along the molding of an adjoining room. The Times also spotted cameras near a suite of bathrooms on the same floor as Epstein's bedroom. When police searched his Palm Beach home in 2005, they quote "located two covert (hidden) cameras" end quote. Both cameras were located inside clocks, one by a desk and the other in the garage.

It's worth noting that Epstein often seemed to get tipped off in advance as to when the Palm Beach police would be dropping by. Epstein is said to have once told an ex-girlfriend, "I collect people. I own people. I can damage people." The disgraced financier Hoffenberg allegedly claimed to the National Enquirer in a final account before his death that quote "Wherever Epstein was entertaining, he and Ghislaine were taping." That report was only released last summer as Hoffenberg had asked the Enquirer not to publish his comments until three years after his death.

According to the Daily Beast, the former US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta, is once said to have claimed Epstein quote "belonged to intelligence" and that the decision to let him off easy in 2008 was made above his pay grade.

The prime minister of Poland, a country that has extensive experience with Russian intelligence operations, has opened an investigation into potential links between Epstein and Russian intelligence. Prime Minister Tusk said, "More and more leads, more and more information, and more and more commentary in the global press all relate to the suspicion that this unprecedented paedophilia scandal was co-organised by Russian intelligence services."

According to alleged anonymous intelligence sources published in the British tabloid The Daily Mail last month, some believe, and I'm quoting here, "Jeffrey Epstein was running the world's largest honey trap operation on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates." End quote.

I want to stress that we don't have answers here. Epstein was an inveterate liar and a criminal who often sought to exaggerate his own power and influence. And the Epstein files need to be viewed through that lens. He could have been working with an intelligence agency or several intelligence agencies. He could have just been what the Russians call a useful idiot. We may never know.

What we do know is that a significant number of powerful men, our current president, some of his cabinet secretaries, tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and others were very mixed up with Epstein at different times. And Epstein seems to have been very mixed up with Russia.

We also know that there is a cover up afoot at the Department of Justice. The MAGA Department of Justice is trying to shield Trump from something in the Epstein files. We know that documents in the files about President Trump that should be released have not been released. The missing files, first discovered by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger, are alleged to detail claims by an Epstein accuser who said she was also sexually assaulted by President Trump when she was a young teenager.

One of the great forces that Washington runs on is normalcy bias. It's often in the interest of the bureaucratic establishment to look skeptically towards outlandish or extreme stories because in most cases the truth is more ordinary than what may first appear.

What I've done here today is lay out the facts as documented by the many brave survivors who have come forward at great personal risk, as well as by the many journalists who have tried, and continue to try, to get to the truth.

As a lawyer, I know that you can prove cases with circumstantial evidence. You don't always need the smoking gun. Here we have links with Russia, girls from Russia, money from Russia, people from Russia, deals and transactions with Russia, contacts with people with Russian intelligence, news reports, exploring contacts with Russia, and an official investigation from the government of Poland into an Epstein-Russia connection. Sometimes with a little imagination, you have the chance to see what's right in front of your face.

And Mr. President, I'd like to ask unanimous consent that this document, which is a bibliography of all of the sources that I quoted from in this speech, to be made a part of the record and appended at the conclusion of my remarks. Without objection, then I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.