Ranking Member Crockett’s Opening Statement at Subcommittee Hearing on Republican Attempts to Distract from their Failing Public Safety Agenda
Washington, D.C. (November 19, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight, delivered opening remarks at the Subcommittee on Oversight hearing on combatting violent crime, showcasing desperate attempts by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress to deflect from their dangerous cuts to law enforcement and public safety initiatives created to combat crime and protect our communities.
Below are Ranking Member Crockett’s remarks at today’s hearing.
WATCH Ranking Member Crockett’s opening statement.
Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett
Subcommittee on Oversight
Hearing on “Restoring Law and Order in High-Crime U.S. Cities”
November 19, 2025
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for calling this hearing.
Since January, Donald Trump has used the full power of the federal government to attack Americans in cities across the country. In Donald Trump's America, you are at increased risk of experiencing militaristic operations in your home, increased risk of being subject to detainment by masked thugs and wannabe vigilantes, increased risk of suffering injuries due to reckless and illegal acts by rogue federal agents, increased risk of being deported to foreign nations.
Even if you are an American citizen, and you're at an increased risk of being targeted by the federal government for criticizing the president and his friends, congressional Republicans have completely abandoned their Article I powers and have exchanged their responsibility to their constituents with fealty to the President. They have allowed the president to turn federal agencies into instruments of autocracy, and as a result, the President has been able to ignore federal law, disregard court orders, and implement the largest pay-for-play scheme in American history. The White House—well, what's left of it, anyway—is literally up for sale. The federal courts have characterized this presidency as “lawless.”
In fact, when ruling against illegal acts committed by the Administration, a Republican-appointed federal judge stated, “the court cannot imagine how the public interest might be served by permitting federal officials to flaunt the very laws they have sworn to enforce.” In a separate case where the Administration was sued for unlawful acts, the judge, also a Republican appointee, stated, “allowing constitutional rights to be dependent upon the grace of the executive branch would be a dereliction of duty by this third and independent branch of government and would be against the public interest.”
But in another case, the court summed it up perfectly by declaring, “As is becoming far too common, we are confronted again with the efforts of the executive branch to set aside the rule of law in pursuit of its own goals.”
Judiciary Committee Republicans have been completely complicit in this corruption, but since they're so interested in restoring law and order, I have a couple of suggestions on where they can start. Number one, this is the President of the United States standing beside his best friend, Jeffrey Epstein. As we all know, Mr. Epstein is one of the most notorious sexual predators in American history. For eight weeks, the Republicans on this Committee have chosen to protect these two men instead of providing justice to Mr. Epstein's victims. Now the administration is panicking. First, they campaigned on releasing the Epstein files. Then A.G. Bondi and associates did a photo op with the files. And she said, and I quote, “the Epstein list is on my desk.”
Then somehow, the Epstein list didn't exist. Then the Epstein files became a democratic hoax. Now, the President is supposedly supportive of releasing the files, even though he's currently ignoring a congressional subpoena to do so. Now the President is simply crashing out, and it's because he can't seem to explain his special, decades-long relationship with one of the most prominent sexual predators in American history.
It's already public that he's in the Epstein files, but his Administration is hiding the context of his involvement, if any, with Mr. Epstein's horrific crimes.
Now, this is Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell. Ms. Maxwell, who obviously helped Jeffrey Epstein traffic more than a thousand women and girls, while Donald Trump is now giving her special treatment while she's serving out her prison sentence. He won't even rule out giving her a pardon or commuting her sentence. I don't need to explain why pardoning sex traffickers wouldn't be restoring law and order.
Now, this is Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Not only has Secretary Noem been busy filming propaganda ads, she's also been busy cashing in on millions of taxpayer dollars. In fact, Secretary Noem has funneled millions of dollars to a company called the Strategy Group. The Strategy Group helped Secretary Noem win her campaign to become the governor of South Dakota. Corey Lewandowski, her top policy advisor, has worked with the firm, and the company's CEO is married to Secretary Noem's chief spokesperson, Mrs. Tricia McLaughlin.
This is what corruption looks like. They're stealing money from the American people's pockets and depositing it into their bank accounts.
Now we move on to yet somebody else. This is the so-called border czar, Tom Homan. Mr. Homan is on tape accepting $50,000 in cash bribes stuffed in a brown paper bag from an undercover FBI agent. Apparently, Mr. Homan accepted these bribes in exchange for awarding federal contracts to his friends. Trump's Department of Justice killed the investigation into Mr. Homan's crimes, and congressional Republicans didn't say a mumbling word.
Lastly, this is insurrectionist and Nazi sympathizer Ed Martin. It appears that Mr. Martin is functioning as the Associate Deputy Attorney General, Pardon Attorney, Director of the fake Weaponization Working Group and special attorney for mortgage fraud. All that means is that Mr. Martin is Trump's lapdog, whom the President sends to initiate lawsuits against the President's perceived political opponents.
This is what we call organized crime. They're breaking the law often by stealing taxpayer dollars, covering up their crimes by ending and obstructing investigations, then prosecuting people who call out their unlawful behavior. And while the Republicans are encouraging this corruption, they're abandoning actual victims of violent crime and ignoring the Republican-led states’ 21st century murder crisis.
In September's appropriation markup, congressional Republicans proposed reducing the FBI's staff by thousands of positions and underfunding the agency by more than $1 billion. They've proposed slashing resources from the ATF. They've proposed cutting grants for juvenile justice programs and hate crimes, and eliminating the Community Violence Intervention and Prevention grants. They're literally defunding the police.
So, no matter what they say at today's hearing, congressional Republicans have proven that they are not investing in keeping American communities safe from violent crime.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.