Trump Tries Shutting Down Bondi Epstein Deposition

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2:14Ben Meiselas:Democrats just stormed out of a sham briefing that Attorney General Pam Bondi decided that she was going to hold with 24 hours notice regarding the Epstein files. She apparently tried to hold this sham hearing and gave only 24 hours notice to try to get out of her deposition, which is supposed to take place on April 14th. She's been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, and she's supposed to appear in public in the next few weeks. So she and the MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump tried to coordinate this sham. They said about 24 hours ago that she wanted to talk about the Epstein files. Democrats were very suspicious.

3:01Ben Meiselas:What are you going to try to talk about in giving us only 24 hours notice. We have you under subpoena. Is this a way you're going to try to get out of the subpoena? And it became very clear to the Democrats as soon as this sham briefing started that that's what Bondi was going to do. It seemed that she and James Comber had scripted this whole thing with Donald Trump as they were going to be like, look, I guess she told you everything. Now, this also comes at the same time where a smoking gun document was just Just revealed on the House floor by Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman, who's been all over the Epstein file investigation by the Democrats.

3:44Ben Meiselas:And he exposed this email that was previously redacted by Trump's DOJ. It's obvious this was serious obstruction of justice. This was criminal. It appeared what's been going down here, obviously. And what the DOJ redacted were notes that were sent by Donald Trump's lawyers back in 2009 to lawyers for victims and survivors and the lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Well, because on October 14, 2009, based on this document that has just been unredacted, it's already been, you know, unredacted, but it was redacted in the documents that were produced publicly. But Congress member Goldman made this public.

4:28Ben Meiselas:It's obvious that Donald Trump and Epstein's connections on these documents far more extensive than Donald Trump or the DOJ ever want Honestly, I'm going to go over what was in this document in just a moment, but let's just bring this all together. So sham briefing called by Pam Bondi. She says House Oversight Committee show up. Now, this follows the House Oversight Committee sending a letter to Bondi saying that she's subpoenaed to show up April 14th. Remember yesterday, I was like, that's kind of surprising. MAGA Republican James Comer was sending a strongly worded letter to Pam Bondi saying she needs to show up.

5:09Ben Meiselas:April 14th. That's odd because we know what Trump sycophant James Comeris, but this was all part of their plan because then she said, all right, I'm going to do this briefing. I'm going to show up on the house. And she was going to try to use this in order to not show up for her deposition. But Democrats saw that coming. Then Democrats just stormed out when they were like, seriously, this is all part of a coverup. We're not going to even being in this room makes you a co-conspirator to crimes because this is part of a cover-up of a child sex trafficking ring. Democratic Congress member Robert Garcia posted the following moments ago, oversight Democrats just walked out of an outrageous fake hearing where Pam Bondi refused to say she would show up for her under oath deposition.

5:55Ben Meiselas:We asked her multiple times and she refused to commit. We won't participate in a fake hearing that's not under oath and not transcribed. The American people deserve transparency and the truth. We are going to end this White House cover up to which the GOP members of the House Oversight Committee put out this message. This was clearly the Democrats plan all along to walk out of the briefing the DOJ offered to provide. Both Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche were answering substantive questions. And Attorney General Bondi stated that she would follow the law regarding her subpoena.

6:32Ben Meiselas:It's clear Democrats don't want answers or justice for survivors. They just want theatrics for their latest partisan stunt, to which the House Democrats in the Oversight Committee said, actually, the Attorney General would not commit to following the subpoena that Chairman James Comer sent her two days ago to testify in front of our committee. So no need to participate in a fake hearing that's not transcribed and is not under oath. Now, as I mentioned, moments earlier before the Democrats stormed out, Democratic Congress member Dan Goldman went to the House floor and he showed one of these documents that the Department of Justice has been covering up.

7:13Ben Meiselas:DOJ redactions hid key details about Trump's Epstein ties, and Congress member Goldman just revealed what they were trying to cover up. In the unredacted document shown today by Goldman on the House floor, we can now read the full notes from a 2009 conversation involving Jeffrey Epstein's attorney and Donald Trump's attorney in an email that was sent in October 20, 2009 from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell. Here's what stands out. Trump's own attorney set the record straight on whether Epstein was ever expelled from Mar-a-Lago. Trump's own attorney admits, no, Epstein was not a member, may have been a guest and was never asked to leave.

7:55Ben Meiselas:Let me repeat that. Donald Trump's lawyer saying Epstein was never asked to leave Mar-a-Lago. Mar-a-Lago's manager, Bernd Lemke, also confirmed Epstein never asked to leave. The notes reference Trump being on Epstein's plane, contradicting public denials. It confirms that Trump had interactions connected to Epstein's world far beyond what he has repeatedly claim Trump. I may have been at Epstein's house with my wife. As Jesse Lee explains, this is incredible. Trump administration's redacted, Trump regime redacted his own lawyer debunking two repeated lies that Trump has told his friendship with Epstein, that told about his friendship with Epstein.

8:39Ben Meiselas:I'm sure John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, can explain how this was some official action, but these redactions were a deliberate and illegal cover up. This is the document that was made available publicly. You can see all of the redactions on the DOJ website. Goldman just exposed it moments ago. Now, going back to this sham hearing that Bondi wanted to contrive with Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, one of the things that went down is when you had a Democratic Congresswoman, Summer Lee, asking questions and saying, you know, are you going to show up, Bondi, to your deposition, your subpoenaed?

9:19Ben Meiselas:We don't want this. We want you to show up under oath, not a sham hearing. Then MAGA Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, was like, stop bitching. He said, you need to. Why are you bitching, he said. That's the words of Comer at this sham hearing. And she put him on blast. Watch what went down. To our lawful subpoena in a deposition. So instead, I asked Chairman Comer if he would compel her to come to our deposition. If she did not come, would he force her to? Or if he would move for contempt hearings as he did for other people who did not respond to our subpoena. Instead of answering.

9:57As an adult, he said that I was bitching, which is, again, something that would not be allowed if we were operating under the rules of this committee, because engaging in personalities is actually something that we are not able to do. If C-SPAN and the public were there, I'd imagine that he would not act that way. Neither here nor there, we expected Aja Bondi to be adversarial. We expected her to be confrontational, and we expected her to not offer us much information. But that's why I introduce impeachment articles, because she has already been obstructing justice. She has already weaponized the DOJ.

10:31She has already ended investigations into Trump and his allies. She has used this role essentially as one to help the president. She does not answer to the president. The DOJ does not have the right or the privilege of withholding information from an active investigation, ignoring the laws of our land, which the Epstein Transparency Act is, with our subpoena from last July is. And the oversight Dems will continue to press for accountability. We'll continue to press for justice for survivors, while also keeping them centered in this. So at the end of the day, we are still here seeking answers for women, for girls, and for the American public who has demanded justice, who have demanded answers to this.

11:16And whether or not they will pretend that the documents that they've given us is enough, we already know that they have not complied. And we are asking other people to make sure that we do not let them off the hook right now. So we look forward to her on the record deposition with our committee in response to our lawful subpoena.

11:33Ben Meiselas:Now, Democratic Congresswoman Stansberry talked about how shocked they were at Bondi's behavior and what Blanche was doing at this sham hearing they tried to set up with less than 24 hours notice. Play this clip. And Todd Blanche himself said today that basically they've released everything they're going to release. Well, that is not compliance with the law. In addition to that, I think what we were all shocked by today is that Pam Bondi was asked multiple times by my colleagues if she would comply with the subpoena for her own deposition under oath, and she refused to answer yes. So I think we can say very squarely that the cover-up continues.

12:10Ben Meiselas:Stansberry talked about walking out of the briefing room as well. Here's what she said. Yeah, well, I just walked out of the briefing room and what is absolutely clear is that Pam Bondi has no intention of complying with the law and the subpoena that we've issued for her to be deposed under oath in front of the committee. In fact, what appears to have happened is that she and Todd Blanche volunteered to come brief the committee and so we walked in today ready to hear information that they would provide to us about what's going on with the Epstein File Transparency Act and basically they said we've released what we're going to release.

12:45And now you can ask me questions. And there was no oath. There were no cameras. The American public were locked out of the room. And it was clear that they were not prepared to answer questions about compliance with the law. And so ultimately, after Chairman Comer insulted Summer Lee, who is the lead in many ways on the subpoena, both of Pam Bondi and the subpoena, the Epstein files, and basically was extraordinarily disrespectful towards her. The Democrats walked out of the room because we're not going to play their games.

13:19Ben Meiselas:So just to be a Democratic Congress member Robert Garcia, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, had this to say just as a as a review, I think it's very important. This fake hearing, we found out about it yesterday with no time to prepare, with no format given to us. We had no idea what even format was going to be until just an hour or two before the actual, this kind of fake hearing that was set up. And it was clear from the minute it started that the attorney general is trying to evade and not attend the mandated subpoena that is put in place. We asked her that question. Multiple members asked her the question.

13:55She would not respond. She said she'll continue to follow the law. That is not a response. She has a subpoena in place by Chairman Comer. If there's any questions, I'll take those now.

14:05Ben Meiselas:Congressmember Frost said the following. The attorney general, I'll have Congressman Frost come in. He specifically also asked her if she would show up to her deposition. And she was very clear if you want to comment on that. Look, I mean, to me, it's very clear that the purpose of this entire fake hearing, this fake deposition, is the attorney general trying to weasel herself out of sitting in front of us under oath, under a bipartisan subpoena that we gave her committee. We asked her multiple times, are you going to come and speak with us under oath? she would not say yes. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster would not say yes.

14:36And so why do we, and then our Republican colleagues say, is this not enough? Why don't you want to speak to her now? We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don't we trust her? Because she's a liar. Look at how that Judiciary Committee hearing went. She was spying on members of Congress when they were in the DOJ looking at the documents unredacted. Look at what she's done as far as not putting documents relating to Donald Trump on the website, not releasing them and only doing it when the public noticed and said something about it. We want her under oath because we don't trust her.

15:11We want her under oath because she has shown that she is involved in a cover up. My Republican colleagues under the last administration would not stand for this with Merrick Garland being in front of them, not being under oath. They wouldn't allow that to happen for a second. So we see this for what it is. This is not a briefing. A briefing is when we sit down and we're getting information from the person giving the briefing. That didn't happen here. She sat down. They started the clock like a hearing. It's a hearing. It's a fake deposition where no one can see what's going on with a zero transcription, where it's not on C-SPAN or anything, and where no one is under oath and they are allowed to freely lie to members of Congress.

15:50Ben Meiselas:More from Democratic Congress member Garcia here play this clip. What's important right now for us is that we hold Pan Bondi accountable for the subpoena. She's about to legal, she legally has to show up. That's number one. Everything after that, whether it's contempt, whether it's anything else, all follows. She's got to show up for her deposition. That's all. Thanks, everybody. Also, Pablo Monriquez, who leads our Washington, D.C. Bureau at the Midas Touch Network, caught up with AOC in the halls of Congress. And here's what she had to say as well about Donald Trump being compromised by the Epstein files.

16:25Ben Meiselas:Let's play this clip. And on Iran, do you feel that Trump being compromised as part of the Epstein files is putting our troops at risk abroad? A lot of our adversaries are using the Epstein files as sort of to create the narrative around the war. Yeah. You know, I think there was a story recently, if I'm not mistaken, about how they believe that the files themselves were compromised by a foreign actor. And anytime you have compromising information that is in the hands of a foreign actor, you have the possibility of manipulation, extortion of public officials. And that is extremely dangerous. And the whole point of having that is to force public officials to make decisions that are not always in the best interest in the United States so that they can kind of escape blackmail.

17:16You know, we need to know more about the details of the situation, but ultimately we have seen U.S. service members lose their lives in addition to many innocent Iranians.

17:33And we don't know, and there hasn't been justification as to why. Do you think the Epstein files could make Trump a target for blackmail then? We don't know what's been compromised and what hasn't. Pam Bondi needs to release the other three million files. We have to remember that Attorney General Bondi is still illegally withholding it. She's in violation of the law. And from what folks have seen in the Epstein files, Trump is absolutely implicated. And that's just from what's been mentioned. that doesn't even include what's been hidden. And so if there's a foreign actor out there that has more access to the Epstein files than the United States Congress, then we do not know who is compromised, the extent to which they are compromised, and the extent to which blackmail could play a role.

18:27But I suspect the odds of that could be quite high.

18:31Ben Meiselas:And here's what Democratic Congress member Subramaniam had to say to us. Play this clip. So, Congressman, do you think that Trump being in the Epstein files is compromising our troops because, you know, obviously our adversaries are using that to sort of cast the narrative about why we're in Iran? Yeah, I mean, it's embarrassing for our country and they're using it against us. The fact that he's been covering this up and been even named himself at different times in the files. So it's going to continue to be a problem for us. Thank you, Congressman. Appreciate it. And more from Democratic Congress member Frost right here.

19:07Ben Meiselas:Play this clip. So, Congressman, are you concerned that Trump being compromised by the Epstein files is going to it is having a negative impact on our troops safety abroad? Our adversaries have been using, obviously, the Epstein files as a means. A hundred percent. And I think I'm not sure it's the whole reason, but I definitely think part of the reason we're even in Iran has to do with the fact that he's looking for every single thing he can do to shift away attention from the fact that he's not only in the Epstein files, but he's in it a lot. And he had a very close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and he's engaged in one of the greatest coverups we've ever seen from a US president.

19:40So that's why we successfully subpoenaed Pam Bondi. And that's why we're going to continue to investigate this. Thank you so much.

19:47Ben Meiselas:This was an explosive moment indeed in the house. Bondi calls a sham hearing, which she's trying to do in lieu of having to show up under oath. She and Trump and obviously the MAGA chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, were going to be like, well, she's already told you everything. So why does she need to testify under oath? Democrats caught it in real time, called her out for it when it was obvious they were doing a sham hearing. Democrats walked. Republicans tipped their hands. You heard it all here. And this follows what we just saw on the House floor where Democratic Congress member Goldman pulls out the email that no one's seen before.

20:26Ben Meiselas:And it's Trump's own lawyer saying Epstein was never kicked out, saying Epstein was never kicked out in Mar-a-Lago. He wasn't even a member. He was a guest. And remember what I've always been saying. I've always been saying, yeah, because Epstein had Mar-a-Lago brought to his house. He never had to go to Mar-a-Lago. The spa was brought to Epstein's place. Epstein lived like a mile and a half away and the spa went there. That was one of the big things. And Mar-a-Lago was one of the locations where Epstein engaged in the child sex trafficking because he recruited from there like Virginia Giuffre when she was an underage child.

20:59Ben Meiselas:Folks, this cover up is getting deeper. Obviously, one of the reasons that Donald Trump is in a never ending war now with Iran. And by the way, we're going to do more reports there because Iran has now struck a main Qatari energy facility. As it said, it was going to do a main energy facility in Riyadh as well. As I said, they were going to do this. Things escalating and its beginning was caused by the fact that Donald Trump was covering up the Epstein files. Anyway, hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. And thank you so much for watching. Want to stay plugged in? Become a subscriber to our sub stack at MidasPlus.com.

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