During an interview with Piers Morgan, former U.S. State Department official Mike Benz argued that Congress should take additional legislative steps to compel the release of government records related to Jeffrey Epstein, including documents he says remain undisclosed by federal agencies.
Piers Morgan began by addressing Benz directly.
“Mike Benz, thank you for your patience. You’re a former US State Department official. You served in the first Trump administration. You’ve become more critical of the government since then,” Morgan said. “First of all, your reaction to David Boies and that interview we just did.”
Benz responded by shifting focus away from the criminal conduct itself and toward institutional accountability.
“It’s generally right. I’m not sure what the point of trying to contest the evil nature of what was done,” Benz said.
“That, to me, matters much less than the protection of it by institutions in our government, whether they be the Justice Department, the FBI, intelligence services, or oligarchs on the outside who want to hide their own relations.”
He continued, “That, to me, is really what the heart of the scandal has moved to in the seven years after his death and the absence of questions.”
Benz said Congress has the authority to take further action.
“What I would add is that Congress can actually take an additional step,” he said.
He compared the current situation to a past moment in U.S. history.
“I’m reminded of the George Bush 2003 speech, mission accomplished after we invaded Iraq,” Benz said.
“This is kind of what this feels like to say we’ve turned over everything. Mission accomplished. By the way, there’s 3 million more files.”
Benz argued that key agencies have not released relevant records.
“We have zero information from the Central Intelligence Agency or the State Department,” he said.
“The State Department. The State Department actually leased Jeffrey Epstein a five story mansion that he stayed in for free for extended periods after it seized it from the government of Iran, while Jeffrey Epstein’s own personal history in the CIA and foreign intelligence adjacent spaces date back to the 1970s and the kind of Iran, Middle Eastern and Latin American operations there.”
He said it appears additional records exist within multiple agencies.
“It seems very obvious at this point that there are entire troves, both within DOJ and CIA and State that need to be turned over,” Benz said.
Benz proposed a legislative model based on a 1992 law related to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination records.
“What can be done right now to move the ball forward in both what David was saying and what folks like John mentioned here is in 1992 after the outpouring of anger that happened after Oliver Stone’s JFK movie, there was a bill passed by Congress,” Benz said.
“It was called the John F Kennedy records Collection Act that forced the CIA to turn over or to set up an independent auditing board to begin the process of reviewing and declassifying documents.”
He suggested a similar mechanism could be applied in this case.
“So you can do the same mechanism here,” Benz said.
“If the Justice Department is saying there’s 3 million we’re not turning over. Pass another bill. Who’s going to be on the other side of it?”
Benz cited the level of bipartisan support for the earlier measure.
“This one passed 427, to one in the house and 99 to zero in the Senate,” he said.
“Pass a bill and force them to be reviewed by an independent auditing board, and don’t just make it DOJ FBI, extend it to the intelligence services, the same way that both chambers of Congress passed in 1992 around JFK, fascinating.”
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