Ken Thomas breaks down the explosive Clinton-Epstein depositions, where Hillary denied Epstein ties and Bill revealed Trump’s 2002–2003 claims of a past feud over a failed deal while admitting Summers brokered flights for his foundation—never seeing wrongdoing. Virginia Roberts Duffrey’s diary entries alleging Clinton’s visits to Epstein’s island with minors fueled bipartisan scrutiny, yet unredacted files remain contested amid victim protections and political optics. The episode underscores how the investigation blurs legal accountability with electoral fallout, exposing deep-seated distrust in elite impunity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Primary Night Revelations00:11:19
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We are joined now by National Political Reporter for the Wall Street Journal Ken Thomas to talk about those Clinton-Epstein deposition videos that have been released.
The committee wanted to get more information on any knowledge they might have about Jeffrey Epstein and his activities.
The House Oversight Committee is doing an investigation into how the government investigated these cases.
And so there was a long-standing legal battle here between the Clintons and their lawyers and members of the committee on whether or not the Clintons should have to testify.
There was a threat to hold them in contempt.
And then finally, the Clintons agreed to do this deposition, which we saw on Thursday and Friday.
They wanted to have a public hearing, and the agreement was that it would be videotaped.
It's edited in the sense that there were moments when they had to go off the record.
But for the most part, any viewer who watches these videos start to finish will get a real sense of what it was like in the room, beginning with introductions, with an opening statement from either Clinton and then a questioning from both the majority and the minority.
Well, I think the majority of the committee felt like it was in their best interest to simply do it this way.
And I think the agreement was also that this would allow the Clintons to just simply do this in their hometown, that they wouldn't have to come down to Washington and have a big production.
But I think from the Clinton standpoint, they felt like the Republicans didn't want it to be a public forum because they were afraid that the optics would be bad, that it might conjure up the Hillary Clinton-Benghazi hearing of more than a decade ago, in which the Republicans on that committee didn't really come out that well.
I think if you start with Hillary Clinton's testimony, she went first last Thursday.
She was adamant that she really had no relationship with Jeffrey Epstein at all.
And I think her posture was just, why am I here?
You know, there's a moment early on.
It was much more of a tense hearing, I would say, deposition.
There was a moment about an hour into the session in which the Clinton legal team learned that photographs of Hillary Clinton from within the deposition room had been leaked to a social media influencer.
It was out on social media, and that was in violation of the rules.
And I think as a result, you saw this very strong reaction from Hillary Clinton.
She was very upset that these photos had been leaked.
And so it was much more of a tense hearing.
she really did not feel like she could add much to the committee's understanding.
Well, so before we go into Bill Clinton, let's actually show that part that you were talking about of former Secretary Clinton at the deposition.
Here it is.
unidentified
And this is an email.
This is an invitation to the fundraiser where you were there.
Do you have any idea if the Epstein referred to is the Jeffrey Epstein?
There's a lot of people named Epstein in this area.
This is in the DOJ files.
I have no knowledge of it.
It says Mr. and Mrs. Epstein.
Yeah, I have no knowledge of this.
Okay.
So it could be a different Jeffrey Epstein.
You're showing me an email from someone who I don't recall knowing about a fundraiser that wasn't for me but was for Congresswoman Lowy.
I have no information.
I went to the fundraiser to support my friend Nia Lowy.
All right.
Excuse me, can I interrupt?
I have another photos that are being released of the Secretary as she is testifying from inside this room.
Can you please advise me as to whether or not that's permissible and consistent with the rules, particularly given that we have asked for a public hearing?
If there are photos that are being released of the secretary as she is testifying, can you please explain how we're done with this?
If you guys are doing that, I am done.
You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home.
This is just typical behavior.
We will go off the table.
Oh, for heaven.
So I would like to understand how that's permissible.
So now on the Bill Clinton side of things, I think there was a lot more material to work through.
You know, Bill Clinton talked about that he first became connected to Jeffrey Epstein in his post-presidency through Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary.
Summers said, you know, that this is someone who has a large plane and could take you and your staff and the Secret Service to the places you need to go to establish your foundation.
And really all he wants in exchange is this is after his presidency.
And in exchange, really, Summers said, you just have to sit with Jeffrey Epstein for an hour, talk politics, talk economics, that kind of thing.
And so, you know, for a foundation that was just getting off the ground that was interested in doing work to reduce the cost of AIDS medication around the world, this seemed like a nice arrangement.
And, you know, the thing that Clinton said throughout is that there was nothing that he saw or learned that would have indicated that Epstein was involved in any of this malfeasance.
And he also, during the testimony, I thought was interesting, he talks about a conversation he had with Donald Trump at the time.
Trump was, this was in around 2002, 2003.
He talks about being at a charity golf tournament and Trump brought up, hey, I heard you have flown on Jeffrey Epstein's plane.
And what Clinton said about the conversation is that Trump said, you know, we used to be friends, but we had this falling out over a land deal.
And so it seems to establish that there was a real estate deal that had gone bad, and that's what led to Trump and Epstein having a breakup.
But the thing Clinton did say is that there was nothing that Trump said that indicated Trump knew of anything, you know, any criminal behavior or anything like that.
Moving on to Virginia Roberts Duffrey, are you familiar with her?
As has already been established, she has stated in numerous sworn statements, including a sworn deposition in the deposition in the Maxwell trial, that she saw you on the island with Jeffrey Epstein.
And in fact, this morning, her family shared her diary with me.
And in it is a quote wherein she writes, quote, Bill Clinton met two times island with two girls, CTGM and JE.
It's one that we heard from the Clintons throughout, that they feel like all of the files should be released, that you should just simply allow the public to see this information.
Obviously, some things would have to be redacted just given the nature of these crimes.
But, you know, I think that's something that the Clintons would agree with.