'A partisan exercise': Hillary Clinton's Epstein deposition

Full transcript with timestamps

0:01 We are now 249 days away from the midterms. And toy, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the House Oversight Committee about Jeffrey Epstein. She is not accused of any wrongdoing and said this after the deposition. REP. GILLANE MAXWELL, I never met Jeffrey Epstein, never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell. casually, as an acquaintance. I don't know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey

0:39 So, it's on the record numerous times. Her opening statement read in part, you have compelled me to testify fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers. What is being held back? Who is being protected? And why the cover up. The proceedings were briefly disrupted when Congresswoman Lauren Boebert leaked photos of the closed-door hearing to a right-wing influencer, who then posted them online.

1:15 Clinton asked for the press to be allowed to come in to document the proceedings, given that Republicans had refused her request for a public hearing. She said that the testimony resumed after she was assured that this would not happen again. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will appear before the same panel tomorrow. tomorrow, prompting Democrats to call for the current president to be subpoenaed. This committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former our presidents. And we're demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight Republicans and Democrats.

1:57 Representative Comer has not responded to that, but he did say he is open to subpoenaing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. According to the files, Lutnick's relationship with Epstein continued after Epstein was convicted of child sex crimes in 2008. And again, appearing in the files is not evidence of a crime. We have to say that. Neither Lutnick, Trump, nor Bill Clinton are facing accusations of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. With that, let's bring in our lead off panel. Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, David Drucker, senior writer at The Dispatch, and Sabrina Siddiqui, national politics reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

2:36 Thank you, all. Peter, I want to start with you. Clinton described the hearing as partisan political theater and Boebert was not reprimanded for leaking photos of a closed-door hearing. So, IT'S A GOOD QUESTION, LOOK, THEY ASKED THE CLINTONS ASKED REPEATEDLY FOR IT TO BE DONE IN PUBLIC AND ONE REASON I THINK THAT THEY WANTED TO DO IT IN PUBLIC ESPECIALLY HILLARY CLINTON, I'M TOLD BY PEOPLE CLOSE TO THEM IS SHE WANTED TO BE ABLE TO CONFRONT THEM publicly. She wanted to be able to have that moment of confrontation because she remembers, of course, how it worked with the Benghazi hearing all those years ago and she was, you know, brought up by Republicans and she basically was, you know, was praised fo how she handled it, 11 hours, I think, of testimony.

3:18 And she felt quite confident that she could bat back their questions and make them look bad. So that's why they wanted to do it in public, I think. And the Republicans, you know, were I mean, I have some hypotheses for the answers to those questions. But, But, Sabrina, I want to turn to you. The New York Times wrote, for Hillary Clinton, an Epstein deposition is the latest stand-by-your-man moment. I wonder what you make of her ultimately appearing today since you covered her 2016 campaign? Well, look, I think that this is once again a position Secretary Clinton found herself in, where she has had to face some uncomfortable questions around actions that pertain to her husband and his prior relationships.

4:29 But they have put on a united front here. Of course, as you pointed out, neither Secretary Clinton nor former President Clinton have been accused of any wrongdoing here. You know, former President Clinton's deposition is not until tomorrow. But I think that we'll hear what we've heard from his spokespeople, which is that his interactions with Epstein had to do with his foundation work. I do think Republicans in their questioning of Hillary Clinton today were looking for potential fodder that they could use against Bill Clinton.

4:59 But But, ultimately, I think why you're seeing the Clintons put on a united front is they genuinely believe that they don't have anything to hide and that Republicans are actually using this moment as more of a partisan

5:25 prominent figures from both parties are implicated here, and even if no one has been accused of any wrongdoing, maybe it would minimize some of the allegations that could be that President Trump could be facing as Democrats call for further probing of his ties to Epstein in their own parallel inquiry. David, to that point, one thing that I thought was interesting is that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are now looking into the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files, following reporting from MSNOW and others that Trump-related files are missing.

5:59 What could they actually do here? And how seriously do you anticipate they will take this inquiry? Well, look, I mean, the congressional committees can certainly put pressure and put public pressure on the Department of Justice to release these files. And in some sense, it would at least sort of make some sense and explain why the president has been so reluctant to release these files in the first place. If you recall last fall or late summer when the White House was trying to pressure House Republicans, enough House Republicans to oppose the Transparency Act so that they'd prevent the release of these files.

6:42 And a lot of us have been asking these questions what you know the president stoked this controversy in the first place so these conspiracy theories during the 2024 campaign uh why is he all of a sudden pushing on house republicans not to release the files and to oppose the legislation. So in some sense, this sort of may explain that. But I think a really more interesting development from the fact that the committee forced the Clintons to testify is it really does open up a precedent, as some Democrats are saying, for Trump to testify in three years when he's no longer president.

7:19 So there's obviously you're going to have executive branch, legislative branch, separation of powers, arguments over who should be doing what and who should be testifying currently. But Trump will no longer be the banner in chief three years from now. And if Democrats have anything to say about it, I'm sure they're going to want to drag him up to the Hill and force them to testify. And that's one of those, these cans of worms that have been opened up by this whole controversy is that usually Congress doesn't sort of ask the former presidents what they would ask of everybody else and that precedent has now been established and I don't think that this is the last we're going to see of that certainly not another can of worms that has been opened here is the can of worms related to Howard Lutnick the Commerce Secretary Peter I want to ask you about him so he is Trump's favorite dealmaker but he has critics within the administration.

8:15 He is now facing bipartisan calls to━some bipartisan calls to a few Republicans to resign over the Epstein connection. Where do you think that's going? Is Trump going to stand by him no matter what? I mean, at what point does he become enough of a liability that maybe Trump does consider cutting him loose? Yeah, I mean, Secretary Lucknik has some questions to answer, right? He said that he didn't have anything to do with Epstein after a certain date because he HE WAS IN BUSINESS WITH HIM, TURNS OUT HE ACTUALLY VISITED HIM ON HIS ISLAND ONCE WE SAW THESE E-MAILS.

8:49 HE EXPLAINED WELL, I DIDN'T STAY VERY LONG OR WHAT HAVE YOU. BUT HE OBVIOUSLY GAVE TWO VERY DIFFERENT VERSIONS of what his relationship was with Epstein. And there has not been an opportunity in any kind of formal setting to grill him about that, to actually sort of say, OK, well, what does that add up to? What were you doing? Why did you say one thing when the e-mail suggests another. Does that mean that the president is going to dump him? Probably not in the near term. He doesn't like at this point to be, you know, throwing people overboard in reaction to the chattering class and a reaction to political POLITICAL PRESSURE AT THIS POINT.

9:22 IT'S NOT THAT HE'S UNWILLING TO FIRE PEOPLE, HE IS, BUT ON HIS OWN TERMS, AT HIS OWN TIME. AND IT COULD BE ONE OF THESE SITUATIONS WHERE LUTNIK HANGS AROUND NOW, BUT AT SOME POINT DOWN THE ROAD, IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE HE'S BEING THROWN OVERBOARD BECAUSE OF of Epstein, you know, certainly his position within the administration is weaker than it was. Sabrina, the administration is trying to reset somewhat after the Epstein files. They're laying out what they see as Trump's wins at the State of the union. But are people going to let go of the investigation, given that there are lingering questions?

9:53 And given that even within the MAGA base, there is still a lot of interest on these unanswered questions from the Epstein files. Well, I think that's precisely the point. You know, this is an issue that the Trump administration has been very eager to move on from for some time now. But because, as you point out, it's something that continues to animate the MAGA base, it's that much more complicated for President Trump and his administration to just try and ignore it or minimize it. You know, he had campaigned on releasing the files.

10:32 He did then, you know, walk back from that promise. And then, of course, there was always back and forth, and then they relented by, you know, releasing, you know, these files that we're talking about right now. And when you look at the polling, you know, President Trump still has very overwhelming support from Republicans when it comes to his handling of virtually every issue and on his handling of the Epstein investigation, that's where you see the numbers among Republicans decline. So it is a political problem for him.

11:04 Now, look, it's not going to impact his overall standing within the Republican Party. But, you know, it is━it's a base issue in a midterm election year where they're already feeling very vulnerable. And even voters to the polls, you know, in November, it's certainly something that is very important to his base. And so they don't want to risk, you know, any kind of revolt or just suppressing enthusiasm in in a year where they really need their voters to turn up.

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The episode runs 12 min; the transcript is about 1,845 words in 18 timestamped sections.

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