Rep.Ro Khanna (D-CA)
Excerpted remarks from House of Representatives, February 10/26
Why are we in a country where there is no elite accountability for people who do the most heinous things?
We need to ask ourselves:
Are we in America going to have elite accountability? Are we going to call on rich and powerful people who broke the law or cavorted with a pedophile, a convicted pedophile? Are we going to call them to account? Are we going to have prosecutions for billionaires who went to this island and either raped underage girls or saw underage girls being raped and didn’t say anything? Are we going to have investigations?
I’ll tell you what this is about. It’s not just about the 1,200 survivors. It’s about two tiers of justice in America. It’s people who can accumulate wealth and power and don’t have to care about the rest of America, who have destroyed so much of this country. Income inequality is at a 60-year high. Workers’ salaries are less than they have been for 75 years as a part of GDP. Somehow, this country seems to be working for the rich and powerful, but it’s not working for ordinary working-class Americans. I say enough. It’s time to begin with accountability for the Epstein class. Hold them in front of Congress—those people who visited the island or did business with Epstein after he was a convicted pedophile. Investigate them, prosecute them, and let’s return to democratic accountability in the United States of America. Let’s return to one system of justice in the U.S. of America. Let’s return to a place where every American has a stake in this country.
