A subpoena request filed in Congress to grant lawmakers access to the flight logs connected to deceased financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was allegedly blocked last week by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).
Durbin, who leads the Senate Judiciary Committee, reportedly rejected the request brought forward by Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn in early November. She accused Durbin of standing in the way of certifying the request after a contentious committee meeting on Thursday.
“What are Democrats trying to hide?” Blackburn said in a post on X.
.@SenatorDurbin BLOCKED my request to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs.
What are Democrats trying to hide?
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) November 30, 2023
During a committee hearing last month surrounding Durbin’s attempts to investigate Supreme Court ethics issues, Blackburn filed the request in the upper chamber of Congress. Amid a fiery exchange between the two lawmakers, Blackburn announced a series of subpoena requests — including one against against Epstein’s estate to identify everyone listed on the flight records that have been said to include several high-profile figures worldwide.
An aide for the Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee told Fox News Digital in a statement that Durbin would have stayed in the panel on Thursday to allow Republicans to offer and debate the 177 filed amendments, noting the committee would vote on authorizing the subpoena after. But Republican lawmakers on the committee allegedly began to filibuster during the hearing and didn’t allow Blackburn to offer the first amendment to the authorization, the Democratic committee aide claimed.
Blackburn called the hearing a “sad day in the history of the prestigious Judiciary Committee and further underscores the Left’s two tiers of justice crusade.”
“They also don’t want to have a conversation about the estate of Jeffrey Epstein to find out the names of every person who participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s human trafficking ring,” she added.
Epstein died in his New York prison cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges that involved running a “vast network” of underage girls for sex. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges before his death at 66 years old.
Insider previously reported that Epstein had owned at least three jets, including a Gulfstream II sold in November 2013, a Gulfstream IV sold before his arrest, and a Boeing 727 nicknamed the “Lolita Express,” which allegedly transported prominent individuals and girls all around the world.
The so-called Lolita Express private jet has been the subject of controversy amid the accusations brought against Epstein and, in particular, the flight records connected to the plane that supposedly include the names of those who traveled with him.
Victims of Epstein and at least one of his pilots have since come out and claimed that public figures, including Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and Donald Trump, had traveled with the disgraced financier.
In December 2021, prosecutors reportedly released thousands of flight records in the sex-trafficking trial of his alleged accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who also pleaded not guilty but was ultimately convicted.
Insider reported flight manifests unsealed in a defamation case against Maxwell showed that some names listed included former President Bill Clinton, supermodel Naomi Campbell, and the astronaut John Glenn.