Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) defended the bipartisan vote against a censure “targeting” Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) on Wednesday.
Jeffries accused Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) of creating a “political stunt by a desperate, failed candidate for governor trying to pander to the people back in South Carolina” on Tuesday in filing the resolution to censure Plaskett.
“I expressed my position on the floor yesterday. My statement speaks for itself,” Jeffries said during a press conference on Wednesday. “In a bipartisan way, a bipartisan way, the resolution that was introduced targeting Stacey Plaskett was defeated. And it was defeated for several reasons, including the fact that it was a dramatic overreach related to throwing her off her committees.”
The late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein texted Plaskett during a 2019 Oversight Committee hearing with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. These texts were revealed as part of a trove of new information released by Epstein’s estate to the committee.
Plaskett has defended her correspondence with Epstein as her communicating with a “constituent.”
“Jeffrey Epstein’s actions were absolutely reprehensible as a constituent,” Plasket said of his convicted crimes, the first of which came in 2008.
HOUSE VOTES DOWN CENSURE RESOLUTION AGAINST STACEY PLASKETT OVER EPSTEIN TEXTS
Police arrested Epstein for the second time on sex trafficking charges in July 2019. Epstein later committed suicide in his prison cell that same year. Several months after the hearing, Plaskett donated Epstein’s contributions to her campaign to charity.
The House also denied an initial vote to refer Plaskett to the Ethics Committee with 214 yeas and 213 nays, and six not voting.