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CNN’s John Berman asked Rep. Pete Sessions, who is a member of the House Oversight Committee:
You just brought up a very important point. There is nothing that indicates any wrongdoing by President Trump or then-citizen Donald Trump. And anything connected to Jeffrey Epstein. And I know you believe that, and we certainly have no reason to believe it and haven’t seen any reporting on it. So if that’s the case, would you support, you know, the Department of Justice? Would you ask the attorney general, just release all the mentions of Donald Trump in the files? If there’s no proof or no suggestion he did anything wrong, why not just release where his name comes up?
Sessions answered and gave away the Republican game, “Well, I hope that this and I’m trying to be forthright. I don’t think this about Donald Trump. I think it is about a group of people who colluded together. We need to know, were they paying Jeffrey Epstein money to do these? Who gave him the loans to buy the islands? Who what did he what was he paid? Where did that money come from? This is child exploitation in a graphically huge way. And the American people and and Republicans want this evidence, even if a name is not associated with the facts of the case to come out so that law enforcement and people who are wives and mothers and grandfathers like myself would understand the game that was played, that they, by and large, got away with at least the facts, the case, if not the names.”
The story about Trump not releasing the Epstein files isn’t about Donald Trump. The story is really about Jeffrey Epstein. Rep. Sessions never answered the question of why not release the files if Trump is innocent.
The answer is that no one is 100% sure, and given that this is Donald Trump we’re talking about, it’s unlikely that the president is innocent.
If Republican thought that the Epstein files contained the names of powerful political opponents, and did not, at a minimum, look terrible for Trump, they would have released them long ago.
Republicans are going to be moving the goalposts if Maxwell testifies on August 13 before the House Oversight Committee. Don’t expect any serious questioning from Republicans on the committee, because the whole point will be to make the hearing about everything besides Donald Trump.
House Republicans can’t give straight answers to simple questions about Trump and Epstein, which means that Democrats will have a great opportunity to turn the tables on the show that Republicans want to stage to protect Trump.
What do you think about Sessions not being able to answer such a basic question? Share your thoughts in the comments below.