OGDEN, Utah — Congressman Blake Moore said he would support releasing some files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"I absolutely support transparency, but you have to protect potential victims’ private information as well. It’s not as easy as let’s release it all when there’s a lot of victims that are going to be exposed for this. That’s part that I know is important to Speaker Johnson," Moore told reporters on Wednesday.
While the issue has divided Republicans and supporters of President Trump (leading to the August recess of the U.S. House of Representatives), Moore put some blame on Democrats.
"These things are political, right? I don’t remember any of my Democrat colleagues demanding Biden to release this stuff," he told reporters. "If they feel like it could affect Trump in some negative way, they’ll continue to push it."
The First Congressional District representative was back in Utah during the August recess of the U.S. House of Representatives. He was meeting with state and local business leaders in Ogden to tout the "Big, Beautiful Bill" which he praised.
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"People are thrilled with the business provisions within the tax reconciliation bill," he said, adding that child tax credits and tax cuts would be made permanent.
"People at least in the First District, we’re a strong state that grows our families, we have a real need for the child tax credit," he said.
Asked about the impacts of cuts to social services, Moore replied that he believed Americans supported the work requirement for Medicaid.
"That’s a good thing," he said."Now, there’s administrative stuff that we need to make sure people don’t fall through the cracks on."
The congressman's comments on tax cuts in the reconciliation bill did get support from the head of the state's largest business group.
"The fact that they were made permanent is huge," said Derek Miller, the CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber, who also praised resources going for border security.
While he supported border security measures, Miller said he had other immigration issues he would like to see addressed to support Utah employers.
"We would like to see the president, our members of Congress, now start address the second half of that problem which is what are we going to do to create more pathways for legal immigration," Miller said.
Asked if he was satisfied with how the Trump administration was handling immigration issues, Moore told reporters: "We can always be doing a better job." He argued that they were addressing problems created by the Biden administration.
Moore and other members of Utah's congressional delegation have faced calls to hold town hall meetings from some groups angry with parts of the "Big, Beautiful Bill" as well as other policies enacted by President Trump. Asked if he intends to hold a town hall while in Utah, Moore told FOX 13 News: "We were just talking about that as a team yesterday. We started the August district work period and trying to figure out what the rest of the month holds."
