Rep. Jasmine Crockett on the Senate, the Shutdown, and the Secrets Trump Doesn’t Want Out | CNN

And joining us now, a key member of the House Oversight Committee, Democratic Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett of Texas. She also sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Congresswoman, thanks very much for being here.

Absolutely.

At this point, does the House Oversight Committee have, to your knowledge, more documents to put out? Do you know more about what these documents may say about President Trump or other powerful

politicians that the public does not know yet? Yeah, there's still more that committee staff is going through and determining what needs to be redacted before the release. And then we always consult with leadership on the Republican side as well before any drops are made public. And I fully anticipate that we will receive more, at least from the estate of Epstein. It does not seem like the Department of Justice has really been inclined to actually participate, which is one reason that we're talking about this discharge petition and talking about this vote.

It's because we need something with a little bit more fire behind it to hopefully get the Department of Justice to finally start to cooperate.

Why is it that Epstein's estate, I mean, Todd Blanche, the president's attorney, deputy attorney general now He wrote this morning that when he went to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, quite a moment, that law enforcement Didn't have the materials that Epstein's estate hid for years and only just provided to Congress Why is he saying this now?

And why is the estate talking to Congress if not to the-

Have you ever heard of CYA? That's exactly what we've got going on. And it was interesting because you made a Freudian slip. You said the president's attorney. You're right.

That's who he is.

I should have said former personal attorney. That's who he is though. Like I'm sticking with it. I get what you trying to do. He's been trying to do Trump's bidding He has not been acting like anyone's Attorney General and we know that when it comes down to Whether you're the deputy or whether you are say Pam Bondi the actual AG you were supposed to be the people's attorney

But she has decided that she wants to Todd Blanch. So here it is, he's like, well, I didn't have all the information. Well, sir, did you try to get the rest of the information? Do we know for sure that the Department of Justice didn't have this information? And if they didn't have this information, do we know whether or not they actually deleted this information? Do we know that there was a thorough investigation?

Do we know whether or not the investigation had concluded, these are all questions that we need answers to, but we can't get them when you're not cooperating. So we don't know what the DOJ has, nor what it is that the DOJ potentially was trying to do. Considering that the president right now is trying to obstruct on some very basics of let's just get a subpoena that says release all the information, I wouldn't be surprised. Just like he obstructed the prosecution of one of his henchmen who took $50,000 in taxpayer dollars from undercover officers.

I wouldn't be surprised if he sent a message and said, stop investigating. We're done with this. Epstein's dead. I don't want to hear anything else about it.

Do you have any evidence of that claim?

I have no idea. No, that's the whole point. I have no idea. No, that's the whole point. I have no information And that's why we need these files to be released because we are looking for transparency whether you're a Democrat Republican or independent listen if people decide that they want to continue to support a person who may be a pedophile himself or a person who Obviously is covering for pedophiles that's on them, but they should know at least the devil that they have decided to pick.

We saw at the top of the show a number of, at the time, Donald Trump surrogates and supporters, including his son and his vice presidential nominee, say that the Epstein files should be released. Obviously, there was a Democrat who was president at the time, Joe Biden. Why were Democrats not louder at that time about this release?

So a couple of things. Number one, you had pending litigation. So we're not the ones that went out making some campaign promises. In fact, the vast majority of Democrats had been campaigning on things such as affordability. I know that Kamala Harris had an actual plan so that people wouldn't necessarily be stuck in a mortgage for 50 years. But instead, she wanted to make sure that they have $25,000 down payment so that they

can move into homes and make life overall more affordable. So we were focused on the bread and butter issues. This was a campaign issue of his. But while there was pending litigation, if you look at when Maxwell was finally convicted, and honestly, she just finished probably one of her last appeals here recently.

You are not usually in the middle of an active case, and then you say, oh, yes, we're gonna release everything. That's not how that goes. So she was prosecuted under

the Biden-Harris administration. So, no, this was not something to do at that point in time. At this point in time, it's clear that they are not interested in going forward with any additional prosecutions in addition to the fact that the survivors have come forward.

They are begging Congress to do this. This is not something that the survivors were necessarily doing at that time. They were still believing in the system and hoping that it would work.

What's your sense, the survivors obviously have been on Capitol Hill, and of course many of them endured just horrific, horrific things, they have said it should not be on them to provide a list of the people that they encountered. Do you, in the course of your work on the committee and perhaps discussions with them,

have any understanding or thinking that they may change their position on that, that we may see a list from them?

I don't think so. Let me tell you something. There's been recent reporting where MAGA seems to be upset because I have to pay for security. I'm actually upset that I have to pay for security as well. The threats that come with being on the other side of this president are significant and serious.

And so when you have a list of women, and they are the ones that are making these claims, for anybody that doesn't want to believe the truth, then they will start to go after them. They will start to threaten their families. It would be better if we had the contemporaneous reports

from law enforcement where they called in at those moments and gave the reports of what was happening. It's kind of like the birthday letter that he wants to pretend is a hoax. That was a contemporaneous writing at that time. This was not produced in real time, and they don't want it to be seen as partisan or political. They just want people to believe in the facts.

And so if it is that they reported this, maybe even before he was president, then maybe people will actually believe it versus the hate that they get thrown at them in this moment. So no, I don't think that they'll do it. I think it's the smartest thing that they can do for safety. It is sad that we have survivors

that feel like they can't be safe from an American president and his cronies, but that's where we are.

While you're here, I also wanna ask you about some of the other political stories that have been unfolding on the Hill. Obviously, the longest government shutdown in history recently ended. There has been a lot of criticism

of the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, from fellow members of yours in the House of Representatives, from the progressive base. Chuck Schumer has defended himself in part by saying over the months that he knows how to win elections.

Do you think that Chuck Schumer still knows how to win elections?

No, I know nothing about his strategies on winning elections, that is for sure.

Because you're thinking about running for Senate yourself.

I am absolutely thinking about running for Senate and I'm hoping to have an answer within my inner circle, probably within the next week and a half or so. But I will tell you this. I will tell you that I completely understand those that are disappointed.

I will tell you that on November 4th, we won in places that we weren't supposed to win in, whether we're looking at Georgia or whether we're looking at Mississippi or whether we're looking at Mississippi or whether we're looking at different parts of Virginia where now we're going to end up having a super majority in the House or in the Commonwealth

in the House. I will tell you this. I will tell you that ultimately the decision about who is best to lead the Senate comes from the Senate. It's only the senators that get to make that decision. They are the ones with information that we don't have. I don't know if there's someone that can fundraise stronger than Chuck Schumer. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know what all Chuck does when it comes to making sure that we have the best chances

with the Senate map that we're given in any given election cycle. And I trust our senators in the Senate to decide on who is best to lead them.

I'll be honest, this makes it sound to me like you are planning on running for Senate.

I can tell you for sure that I have not made a decision. I will also tell you that we have a poll that is currently in the field, it went into the field on yesterday. I am waiting on those results. It's the first and only poll that I've put out to be able to kind of understand where I really am. I don't want to rely

just solely on third party polls.

So basically you're polling yourself to try to make a decision about what you should do.

I am. I'm polling to determine whether or not I can expand the electorate and I believe that I can, but if I can't I can tell you for sure, 100%, that I will not run.

Fair enough. And it sounds to me like perhaps you've answered this question already, but have you thought about would you support Chuck Schumer if you were a senator to be the leader?

I haven't, but I will tell you that if there are other people that are interested, because I don't know who wants these jobs sometimes, if there are other people that are interested in running for that post, I absolutely would plan to hear everyone out as I've not worked as closely with the Senate. You know, most people don't realize that House Democrats and Senate Democrats, we don't even get together as like caucuses. We literally, whatever senators you have a relationship with or you interact with, it's

because you work with them kind of one on one. And I can tell you that I've never had any piece of legislation that I've had to work one-on-one with Schumer on. I can tell you that I've worked with Senator Cornyn, who is up for re-election, a number of times on a number of pieces of legislation.

He's actually not been the worst Republican that you can find in the Senate, to be perfectly honest.

Have you talked to Schumer about the possibility of your running for Senate?

I have not.

You have not.

I have not. And what do you think about your colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez potentially running against him?

Good idea, bad idea?

I think that that's up to the people of New York. I think, you know, there is this feeling within our base that we need to have younger people. I will tell you that I don't necessarily just subscribe to ageism. I'm gonna be perfectly honest, because even when you look at the votes and you look at the six Democrats

that actually broke ranks yesterday out of the House, I can tell you that they weren't all elderly. There were a number of very young people. Definitely one of the members is younger than me. So I think that it is about who is willing to fight in this moment and what does that fight look like. So I think New York will have to decide,

if Alex does decide to run, who is built for this moment. And I really want to urge all Americans that were disappointed with the eight Senate Democrats to not get disappointed or disenchanted with the party as a whole. But when you go out, don't just vote for a Democrat. Vote for a Democrat that is ready for the fight that we're in at this moment. One that is looking for

accountability with this rogue administration.

All right, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, thanks very much for spending some time with us today.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Appreciate having you.