Epstein Scandal Roars Back on Capitol Hill

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0:55Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. Tonight we're reporting on Americans revolting against Trump over these ongoing high prices as he craters to his lowest approval ever amid the war. And the hypersensitive woes of FBI Chief Cash Patel. He's turned out to be really probably the largest snowflake in the whole administration as he takes drastic steps to attack criticism, which actually just tends to be part of the job when you run the FBI. We have that story coming up later. And Barack Obama making waves with his star turn on Colbert. You're going to see some of that here by the end of the hour.

1:34It was of interest to many. You'll hear exactly what he said. But our top story starts right here. With that Trump official caught lying about his visit to Epstein Island. You have Epstein in the foreground and the gentleman in blue behind him. Howard Lutnick back in the hot seat today, Congress grilling the Commerce Secretary about those Epstein links and his Epstein lies. He has been forced to address a lot of it after what was a very unusual law that no one at the time expected to come out. But it did. We lived through that. And that law forced out evidence, including the photograph on your TV screen or your YouTube or your phone, however you're watching us.

2:17but wherever you're watching us, that evidence is on your screen. That's a photograph that they never thought would come out. They never wanted it to come out. It was only the huge, unusual pressure that made it come out and contradicted this Trump official's claims. We now know Lutnick was named over 200 times in the Epstein files. Those are the ones we've seen, including the emails arranging the very island visit that we just showed you. His assistant relayed it. It was nice seeing people there. And those long secret emails from Lutnick and his team and other Trump allies like Elon Musk have served to publicly shred those men's past denials.

2:55And so, even by the low standards in D.C. today, it was too much. As we showed you in our beat case timeline, which started with the missing video and Ghislaine Maxwell, but ultimately moved on to include, over on the right, Mr. Musk and Mr. Lutnick and Lutnick's blackmail claims, which I'll mention in a moment. All of that came out only because of the new evidence. And while Trump and his cabinet would like those past evidence dumps to be the end of it, some in Congress have pressed on, which leads us to this scene you have today. Mr. Lutnick there being escorted in for private testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

3:38And we'll tell you what we're learning about that. But before I go any further, some might wonder, well, how is Jeffrey Epstein back in the news tonight? Months after the files came out, amid this war and the gas crunch and other big news developments, Donald Trump certainly doesn't want this to be the top story again. And part of the answer has been something that is not only unusual, but really cuts against the narratives that we hear so much. There's a lot of simple narratives out there. some of them are true when you hear the narrative that wall street and big business and big money controls too much of your government no matter which party is in charge that's kind of a macro narrative i would say that has a lot of evidence of truth behind it but there are other narratives that simplify and sand things down like the idea that everyone in congress is on the take nobody's doing anything that's actually not the case it's a little more nuanced and so i have the men you see up on your screen because they are part of a bipartisan push to follow the leads from those Epstein files that Congress forced out.

4:42You can get the docs and everyone can have their day reading about it, but if that's all it was, then that's not really a lot of accountability. It's certainly not a lot of actual investigative information to come out if you just drop it all. And yet, Democrat Ro Khanna, Republican James Comer have pushed to follow up on those documents, to use the actual powers of Congress, this co-equal branch, even and perhaps especially when Donald Trump would rather they didn't. Now, there are still differences between those men in the parties, including about which interviews are prioritized, taped, and broadcast.

5:18But let's be clear, some members, including some Republicans, are still staying on this issue, which is why it's back in the news tonight with new testimony, even if the White House wishes it weren't. This is coming over Trump's objections and over the objections, frankly, of a lot of D.C. insiders, including some Democratic figures like the former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who's been ousted from his posts. He was largely a kind of a centrist Democrat in several administrations. Those type of elites and, of course, a lot of the Trump officials would like to just wind this down. Well, it's not winding down tonight on Capitol Hill.

5:52And pressing Lutnick is actually key, given that we also know that Trump's DOJ dropped the ball on things that Lutnick was saying in public. He was sounding off about how Epstein, his former neighbor, might use videos or quote blackmail against government officials. And if that's true, it would mean against fellow Trump officials and Trump officials in the first term who, of course, were dealing with Epstein as a defendant. Now, that pitted Lutnick against people like then A.G. Bondi, who had claimed there was never any blackmail. And she'll be up for testimony soon. There's also news on that tonight.

6:27But here's the context of that past Lutnik claim. This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, I assume, way back when. They traded those videos in exchange for him getting that 18 month sentence which allowed him to have visits. It must have been a trade. So my assumption, I have no knowledge, but my assumption is there was a trade for the videos because there were people on those videos. there's a lot going on in there, but at bottom, at its core claim, and we're not reporting that is true or fact check tonight. We're reporting that a top Trump official said it at one point in time. But what he alleges is a type of government wrongdoing possible crime, if it includes blackmail or trade in government services.

7:20I mean, people could go to jail for that. And he's referencing a deal that was struck by a later Trump official, Alex Acosta. So again, the allegations of blackmail and dirty dealing to protect Epstein over alleged videos is coming from inside the Trump cabinet. Now, that's just where we started. I told you I'd update you on what's happening. Here are the reports from inside Lutnik's session today. There was a suggestion that he now is backpedaling, that he only met with his former neighbor Epstein three times total, that he didn't see him with young women, and yet he at the time felt unsettled to be invited to Epstein's Island, but he went, as we showed you.

7:58Lawmakers noting this is a changing story at best, Democrats suggesting Republicans wanted to avoid testimony video of what they would expect to be a tough interview for the Trump cabinet. Well, now we know why that interview was not videotaped. If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick. It was really embarrassing. It was just contortions and lies and no acknowledgement that he misled the American public. The top Republican on the panel, which is the counterpart there of Mr. Kanna, added that Lutnick was not 100 percent truthful about that key point of whether you visit the island.

8:43and that's not like a minor thing like I didn't remember whether it was coffee or lunch. If you're not 100 % truthful about going to Epstein Island with everything we know now and you lie about it in public while you're working in the federal government, that is a big deal. Now, like others caught up in the Epstein saga, it stokes the larger question and I'm not trying to be unfair. It does stoke the question, why did you lie about going to the island? why continue the problem for years? Was there a reason? Maybe there was no reason and he's just a bad liar. Still a problem to lie while you're serving the federal government, but maybe, and this would have to be looked into, maybe there was a reason because that's the whole thing.

9:26Lettluck lied about this for so long and didn't face consequences within the Trump administration. We'll let the American people judge whether the credibility was damaged or not. And at the end of the day, I haven't seen wrongdoing in the email correspondence, but he wasn't 100 percent truthful with whether or not he had been on the island. He was not 100 percent truthful. That's the Republican side there. And again, as I said, counter to some of the narratives that we're told, whatever you think of how Republicans or Donald Trump has handled the Epstein issue, the voice you just heard is of a top Republican who did push to get this testimony and is saying straight up you got Trump officials still being not 100 % truthful, which might be their sort of politically sanitized or PC version of saying he's lying.

10:16Now, I also want to be clear. It is true that the authorities have not suggested criminal wrongdoing by Lutnick. Done. Cash that out as the current state of play about the authorities. But a top official lying about his own personal dealings with this deceased sex trafficker is a type of professional wrongdoing in office. It's exactly what the Senate vets when advising and consenting to nominees under our Constitution Are they competent? Are they truthful? Will they uphold the Constitution? Will they lie to the public or the government about matters of import? Not lunch or coffee, but important matters As this individual did while you paid his salary with your tax dollars Which might have been better spent on your gas This is very recent or not dredging up just the old thing.

11:11If you had just the old thing and you said, oh, that was a mistake, didn't know about it then, let me be honest, let me be helpful to everyone looking for the truth, including the survivors, that might be a very different response. That's not what happened. Lutnick was being compensated by tax dollars. He's working for a party which claimed and ran in 2024 on getting to the bottom of the Epstein crime spree, not hiring and then maintaining officials like Mr. Lutnick, who still has Donald Trump's backing, to lie to the public and misrepresent Epstein evidence that was inside the DOJ's possession, to obfuscate its own supposed probe.

11:45Because if the government is trying to get to the bottom of whether there was blackmail or other misconduct in the past sweetheart deal that Epstein got, it's a problem if its current officials are lying about said evidence. Here's some of the contradiction of his own personal history, Lutnick going to the island and his dealings with Epstein, which both members of the committee on the left and the right, both parties, mentioned with regard to his lack of veracity today. I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy. That guy was there. I wasn't going because he's gross.

12:30I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation. my wife was with me as were my four children we had lunch on the island that is true that is true so he was lying he lied in the interview and told the truth under oath and for anyone who gets cynical and says they get away with everything turns out with a lot of these folks you put them under oath and they tell the truth rather than expose themselves to criminal prosecution i don't think mr lutnik is worried about this doj which had his evidence and didn't ever publicize it until the law made them. I don't think he's worried about this DOJ charging him for lying about that to Congress.

13:11He must be worried that things could change real soon. Now, context. In other administrations in both parties, cabinet officials have been removed for less than the lies about the sex trafficker that I just showed you that Mr. Lutnick lied about. Now, there are calls for Lutnick's removal. Others have been ousted from positions based on their ties to Epstein and other alleged misconduct or misleading statements. Again, not everyone here is necessarily facing any allegation of criminal wrongdoing, but we have meticulously shown that they've been ousted from jobs or faced civil subpoenas, testimony demanded, a type of accountability that Lutnik has not faced as of tonight.

13:53Now, some Trump allies claimed that turning the story away from Epstein over the last few weeks, If you notice, this story has not been front burner the last few weeks, that turning it from Epstein to anything, anything, would help Trump. Remember that? I'm sure you've heard about that. but that hasn't actually been the case if the new thing is this costly flailing war and so for people who inhabit the MAGA media discourse which has proven to be influential on the right and part of the center keep in mind there's been a series of Trump criticisms from major MAGA voices who have been supportive of Trump for years and it really picked up steam late last year around Epstein and has continued up through this week and it includes the objections to what are seen as both Trump's failures and lies about both Epstein and Iran.

14:45How come you redact some people and you don't redact other people? Like, what is this? This is not good. None of this is good for this administration. It looks terrible. It's the way they've handled the scandal has been so bad. Completely agree. This is self-inflicted. Current DOJ under Pan Bondi is covering up crimes. Very serious crimes. It looks terrible. It looks terrible for Trump when he was saying that none of this was real. This is all a hoax. This is not a hoax. There is something there and it's being covered up and the president blessed it.

15:23There's something there, and this is part of the cratering of Trump. It's not like the No Kings movement and the resistance or the immigration opponents, the ICE opponents, have changed Trump's trajectory over the past couple weeks. It is a conflagration that started with Epstein that continues with Iran, and today is back with the lies around Epstein and Trump on Capitol Hill. Our guests tonight are lawyer Nancy Erica Smith and legal writer Emily Bazelon. Nancy, your thoughts? My thoughts are, again, we had a triggering day for the survivors and the victims. Not everybody survived Epstein. Virginia Goufray did not.

16:04It's really triggering that these very powerful people keep lying and lying and lying, and there's no consequences. People as close to the president as you can get in his cabinet. And it's important to note that Epstein pled guilty to trafficking a minor for prostitution in 2008. Lutnik met with him at his house in 2011. The island, 2012. Went into business with him, co-investors, 2013. 2015, Lutnik, this is all in the files, invited Epstein to a political fundraiser. 2017, Epstein gave$50 ,000 to a dinner honoring Lutnik. He forgot all that? That's not possible. So not only is he a liar, he has been hanging out with a convicted pedophile since 2008.

16:59He was grossed out in 2005? What a liar. Is this the kind of professional wrongdoing that should lead to his removal from the cabinet? Absolutely. But this is the Trump Epstein cabinet. You know, RFK was on the flight. Dr. Oz was invited Epstein to a Valentine's party eight years after he pled guilty. Acosta, you know, covered up. He was Trump's labor secretary. Bannon got Christmas presents in 2018 and 19 from Epstein. I mean, this is a close knit group of people who hung out with Epstein after he pled guilty. They knew he was he was going to be convicted, but he pled guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

17:43Who hangs out with somebody who's done that? And it went on for years and years and years and it kept going on. So and I think it's really interesting that he that Lutnik brought up possible blackmail because one of the important emails is and there's a lot of emails where it looks like Epstein is going to blackmail people. He says it directly. I'm going to keep your secrets. But one about Trump is, you know, I've received lots of calls about Donald, parentheses, Mildefart, who is a Norwegian ex-girlfriend of both Epstein and Trump. Beauty contests, Mar-a-Lago, et cetera. But my answer is always I have nothing to say.

18:24That sounds like somebody who's got something to say and is keeping it secret. Right. And with Ludnik, you can say, well, maybe he exaggerated for his own ends, but then why not clean it up and explain it? And why did you think this was something to say? The fact that he pulled out of the air this blackmail thing, and then you're saying years later, evidence shows that that's how Epstein talked. But if you weren't on those emails, how would you know that? And so, again, it's a pile of questions. Emily, your thoughts tonight and your view of why this has roared back on Capitol Hill today?

18:58Emily Bazelon:I mean, I'm struck by a similar question to the one you asked. Why not just admit it and apologize, given that the pictures exist, the footage of him pretending to distance himself, you know, with lots of kind of glee at sort of remarking on Epstein as gross, like Nancy was saying. Why not just admit you were wrong and move on? Is that the kind of lesson of Trumpism that you just don't apologize no matter what? Or is there more lurking here that somehow trying to whitewash this particular set of allegations, even with this visual proof, just makes it not worth admitting to this part because then people will somehow find out about the rest of it.

19:44And Democratic lawmakers were hammering this today. Take a look. Howard Lutnick should resign. That was absolutely mind-boggling what we just heard in the room. He was evasive, nervous, he was dishonest. Howard Lutnick is a pathological liar who is enabling the most egregious cover-up in American history. And he wasn't willing to be in a room with them, but he was perfectly OK with his wife and family being in a room with Epstein. He's lying. I think of all of the depositions that we have done so far, I find Howard Lutnick to be the least credible. Emily, we are speaking about this now months into it.

20:28When we began these type of discussions, very few top officials have been ousted from this cabinet. And the mood was, oh, nobody's going. This is sort of the Trump 2.0 thing. Now the AG is out and she was wounded by this issue, among others, although Trump would never publicly admit that as a rationale. DHS chief is out. Other border officials are out, partly over what Trump called, however cynically, the bad press of ICE, not the cruelty of ICE, perhaps. Does that fit into the equation here where Trump would never admit this reason? But it's not like Mr. Lutnick is so involved in commerce and things that are more vital than than those other folks portfolios.

21:09Emily Bazelon:I mean, for sure it's bad politics. That seems clear. I imagine that it will depend whether this is one day of news or it continues. It's also kind of amazing that Lutnik, whose family has made so much money during the second Trump administration, is not also on the hook for that. But we know that he's been one of Trump's key negotiators in the Middle East. And obviously the war in Iran is a giant issue for the administration. So it's possible that Trump just doesn't feel like he can or wants to lose Lutnick right now, even though this kind of coverage is obviously bad for the administration. And Nancy, in closing, I have less than a minute, but the role of pressure here, even when it goes seems to get out of the headlines, as mentioned, some of the pressure continues to work.

22:00Yes, we have to keep the pressure on the victims, the survivors. They deserve it. We all deserve it. We deserve not to have people enabling pedophiles in the highest levels of our government. Nancy, Erica Smith and Emily, as this as this issue stays alive in Washington, thanks to both of you for your expertise. Coming up, we have that FBI story and Obama's warning about an independent DOJ. I'm back with you in 90 seconds.

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23:30Emily Bazelon:Home to the Rachel Maddow Show. Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. MS Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at MS.now.

23:48Turning to new reporting from MS Now, Cash Patel's FBI is investigating what seemed to be fully lawful leaks to an Atlantic reporter who was reporting on Cash Patel, his conduct in office. and allegations regarding his conduct, behavior, and possible drinking. Now, that is standard for any public figure, especially an FBI chief. You are going to face criticism and coverage. Now, Patel, we should report, has denied any such allegations, including regarding the misuse of alcohol, and he's filing suit for defamation. The article, though, shows that the issue is not between Patel and the reporter, but rather the many, many sources cited.

24:33our sources say that it's troubling on two fronts one there was no known disclosure of classified information in this long atlantic magazine article they're even more troubled by what they say is a focus on the journalist which is very unusual there is a focus now on trying to figure out who sarah's sources were including and up to obtaining her phone records potentially running her name through FBI databases, taking very intrusive steps. There are times where the government has legal authority to investigate classified leaks or the misuse of government information. That is a focus on people inside government who might have broken the law.

25:15Right now, there's no public evidence of that kind of classified information even coming into this topic. And so it appears to be that Mr. Patel has trouble handling criticism, that he is hypersensitive. And if that's the case, that may affect how well he can do his job. But again, that's part of First Amendment protected discussion of his competence, his emotional baseline. Maybe he is too emotional and erratic to handle the type of scrutiny that comes with this job. Maybe he is, as they say in MAGA land, a snowflake. But the bigger issue is how the FBI is, as The Atlantic puts it, making this attack on press freedom.

25:49And it's not a one-off. The DOJ, which works with the FBI on investigating and prosecuting cases, has repeatedly been caught abusing these powers to go after Trump's perceived opponents. That includes all the people you see on your screen who are from all types of backgrounds, including Republicans. What they have in common is that Trump doesn't like their First Amendment criticism. Pam Bondi was also reportedly ousted partly because she didn't get far enough on these failed installed cases because they usually lack legal merit. Now her acting replacement, Todd Blanche, is trying to show that he will go even farther.

26:27And so you have that alongside Patel, who's upset about press coverage and criticism, and attacks on the Southern Poverty Law Center, misuse of legal powers, a new Comey indictment. When you look at Comey, the trend is so pronounced, it actually got this fact check from Obama. The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants to prosecute. Right, because technically it's under the executive branch, but the norm is that it's independent. The idea is that the attorney general is the people's lawyer. It's not the president's consigliere.