Latest / The Vault: The Epstein Files / The Clinton Epstein Depositions and the Failure of Congressional Oversight (Part 1) (9/16/26)

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The Clinton Epstein Depositions and the Failure of Congressional Oversight (Part 1) (9/16/26) · The Vault: The Epstein Files

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What's up everyone and welcome back to the program. After
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: watching the Clinton deposition from beginning to end and then
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: reading the transcript, one thing becomes difficult to ignore. Congress
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: did not approach these witnesses with anything approaching a uniform standard.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Bill and Hillary Clinton were subpoenaed as part of an
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  Speaker 1: inquiry supposedly designed to unravel Jeffrey Epstein's network, determine what
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  Speaker 1: powerful people knew, and examine how Epstein managed to operate
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  Speaker 1: for so long while surrounded by by some of the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: most influential people in the world. Yet when questioning finally arrived,
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  Speaker 1: several Democratic members seemed considerably more interested in attacking the
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  Speaker 1: premise of the deposition than in using their allotted time
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  Speaker 1: to aggressively test the Clintons' testimony. Hillary Clinton had barely
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  Speaker 1: finished appearing before lawmakers, before Democratic members were publicly calling
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  Speaker 1: the proceeding a clown show, political theater, and a political sideshow.
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  Speaker 1: Representative James Walkinshaw said, went even further, publicly declaring there
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  Speaker 1: was zero, zip, zilch, nada, indicating Hillary Clinton knew about
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  Speaker 1: Epstein's crimes. Though statements were not made after months of
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  Speaker 1: document comparison and investigative synthesis, they came in the middle
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  Speaker 1: of an active congressional investigation. And in my opinion, that's
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  Speaker 1: a remarkable posture for a lawmaker supposedly participating in a
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  Speaker 1: fact-finding exercise. A serious investigator doesn't begin by announcing that
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  Speaker 1: the witness effectively has nothing to answer for, That posture
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  Speaker 1: inevitably raises questions about whether the objective is examination or defense. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the problem becomes even more pronounced when Bill Clinton enters
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  Speaker 1: the picture, because his relationship with Epstein is substantially more
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  Speaker 1: documented than Hillary Clinton's. Clinton acknowledges traveling aboard Epstein's aircraft
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  Speaker 1: on multiple trips during the early 2000s, and his name
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  Speaker 1: appears repeatedly throughout the enormous body of Epstein-related material released publicly.
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  Speaker 1: He testified that he knew nothing about Epstein's crimes and
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  Speaker 1: said there was nothing he witnessed that alerted him to
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  Speaker 1: trafficking or abuse. He also testified that he never visited
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  Speaker 1: Epstein's island and denied sexual wrongdoing involving women pictured with
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  Speaker 1: him in material presented during the deposition. Those are important answers,
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  Speaker 1: but they are only the beginning of an investigation rather
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  Speaker 1: than the end of one. The purpose of congressional questioning
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  Speaker 1: should be to test those answers against flight records, photographs,
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  Speaker 1: witness accounts, White House visitor records, calendars, and every other
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  Speaker 1: contemporaneous document available. Clinton's not some guy that had a
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  Speaker 1: backseat who once shook Epstein's hand. He has a connection
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  Speaker 1: to Epstein, and it was significant enough that Congress fought
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  Speaker 1: for a month to compel his testimony. And once he
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  Speaker 1: finally sat in the chair, every member of the committee
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  Speaker 1: had an obligation to treat the opportunity seriously. Instead, much
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  Speaker 1: of the democratic response surrounding the deposition became an argument
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  Speaker 1: about why the Clintons were being questioned at all. That's
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  Speaker 1: an extraordinary inversion of congressional oversight. Investigators do not need
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  Speaker 1: evidence that a witness committed a crime before asking that
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  Speaker 1: witness what he or she knows. Witnesses are questioned because
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  Speaker 1: they possess information, witnessed events, maintained relationships, or moved through
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  Speaker 1: environments relevant to an investigation. Bill Clinton plainly meets that
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  Speaker 1: threshold because he traveled with Epstein and associated with him
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  Speaker 1: before Epstein's criminal conduct became widely known. Hillary Clinton's connection
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  Speaker 1: is more attenuated, but she was nevertheless positioned close enough
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  Speaker 1: to her husband's political and philanthropic world that congressional investigators
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  Speaker 1: considered her testimony potentially relevant. Whether that judgment was correct
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  Speaker 1: is something lawmakers could debate afterward. What makes considerably less
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  Speaker 1: sense is participating in the deposition while simultaneously behaving as
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  Speaker 1: though asking questions itself constitutes an improper act. That attitude
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  Speaker 1: transforms oversight into factional defense before the evidentiary record has
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  Speaker 1: even been completed. The Democratic members who called Hillary Clinton's
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  Speaker 1: deposition a circus had legitimate grounds to criticize some of
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  Speaker 1: the Republican questioning. Hillary Clinton said she was asked about
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  Speaker 1: subjects including Pizzagate and UFOs, neither of which advances a
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  Speaker 1: disciplined inquiry into Epstein's trafficking operation, and the testimony documents
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  Speaker 1: the transcript show that. Republicans also created a completely avoidable
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  Speaker 1: controversy when a photograph taken during the closed-door proceeding was
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  Speaker 1: distributed publicly, temporarily interrupting the deposition. Those episodes deserve criticism
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  Speaker 1: because they cheapen what should have been a serious investigation.
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  Speaker 1: But Republican unseriousness does not excuse Democratic unseriousness. If Democratic
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  Speaker 1: members believed their colleagues were wasting time, the obvious response
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  Speaker 1: was to use their own questioning period to establish a
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  Speaker 1: higher standard, ask precise questions, introduce documents, test dates, compare recollections,
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  Speaker 1: explore Epstein's access to Clinton's political and philanthropic circles. Declaring
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  Speaker 1: the exercise ridiculous and then treating the witness defensively does
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  Speaker 1: nothing to rescue the investigation. A journalist may have ten
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  Speaker 1: minutes with a former president and therefore choose only the
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  Speaker 1: most obvious questions. Congress possesses subpoena power, staff investigators, documentary evidence,
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  Speaker 1: and the ability to question a witness for hours. That
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary power creates an extraordinary responsibility. A witness says he
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  Speaker 1: does not remember something, investigators can produce the corresponding document.
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  Speaker 1: A witness disputes a timeline, investigators can introduce travel records
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  Speaker 1: or calendars. A witness describes a relationship as casual, investigators
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  Speaker 1: can compare that description with frequency of contact shown elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: A witness denies knowledge, investigators can examine what information was
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  Speaker 1: available to that person at the time. None of that
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  Speaker 1: requires screaming, accusations, or theatrical confrontation. It requires preparation. And
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: what makes the Clinton deposition frustrating is the sense that
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  Speaker 1: political positioning too often displaced exactly that kind of disciplined examination. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's testimony presented numerous obvious opportunities for detailed follow-up.
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  Speaker 1: He said he had no idea, no idea, Epstein was
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  Speaker 1: committing crimes. He said he saw nothing during their association
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  Speaker 1: that made him believe Epstein was trafficking women. He discussed
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  Speaker 1: flights aboard Epstein's plane and his understanding of how their
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  Speaker 1: relationship developed He acknowledged receiving a neck massage from one
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  Speaker 1: of Epstein's survivors. According to reporting on the deposition, he
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  Speaker 1: answered questions about photographs showing him in social settings connected
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  Speaker 1: to Epstein. Each answer could have been carefully cross-referenced against
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  Speaker 1: the documentary record. The task was not to accuse Clinton
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  Speaker 1: of participating in Epstein's crimes because the publicly established evidence
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  Speaker 1: doesn't prove that. The task was to determine exactly what
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  Speaker 1: he saw, exactly when he saw it, exactly who was present,
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  Speaker 1: and exactly how his recollections correspond with surviving records. A
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  Speaker 1: committee genuinely obsessed with finding the truth would spend its
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  Speaker 1: time drilling into those details, rather than fighting over which
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  Speaker 1: political party benefits from the deposition. Look, there's also a
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  Speaker 1: profound difference between saying that Bill Clinton has not been
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  Speaker 1: accused of Epstein-related crime and saying there's nothing meaningful to
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  Speaker 1: investigate about his relationship with Epstein. Those propositions are constantly
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  Speaker 1: blurred in political discussion. even though they're completely different. Clinton's
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  Speaker 1: lack of criminal accusation does not erase his documented association
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  Speaker 1: with Epstein, nor does his association prove criminal conduct. The
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  Speaker 1: entire purpose of an investigation is to operate between those
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  Speaker 1: two poles and determine what the evidence actually establishes. Congressional
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  Speaker 1: Democrats undermine that process whenever their public posture sounded less
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  Speaker 1: like investigators examining testimony and more like advocates explaining why
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  Speaker 1: the deposition itself was unnecessary. Congressional Republicans undermined it whenever
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  Speaker 1: they wandered into irrelevant political spectacle. Both behavior produces the
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  Speaker 1: same result, fewer useful answers. And look, the Epstein investigation
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  Speaker 1: can't afford that because so much of the history has
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  Speaker 1: already been contaminated by institutional failure and political mistrust. And
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  Speaker 1: the treatment of Hillary Clinton illustrates the problem from another direction.
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  Speaker 1: Hillary testified that she did not recall meeting Epstein and
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  Speaker 1: had no knowledge of his crimes. She acknowledged knowing Ghislaine
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  Speaker 1: Maxwell casually as an acquaintance, while Maxwell had connections to
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  Speaker 1: the Clinton social and philanthropic orbit. Those claims should have
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  Speaker 1: been tested methodically and then either corroborated or contradicted by
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  Speaker 1: the evidence. Instead, the proceeding immediately became a proxy war
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  Speaker 1: over whether Hillary Clinton should have been sitting there at all.
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  Speaker 1: Democrats publicly argued that Republicans were pursuing another politically motivated
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  Speaker 1: attack against her. Republicans responded by emphasizing unresolved questions about
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  Speaker 1: Epstein's relationship with the Clinton world. And once that frame
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  Speaker 1: took over, the actual evidentiary questions, they became secondary. And
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  Speaker 1: that is precisely what congressional investigations are not supposed to become.
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  Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's political history is irrelevant to whether her testimony
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  Speaker 1: accurately describes what she knew about Epstein and Maxwell. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that the defensive posture is jarring because the
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  Speaker 1: Democratic members did not need to protect Hillary from unsupported
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  Speaker 1: accusations in order to question her aggressively. They could have
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  Speaker 1: done both things at once. They could have rejected wild
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  Speaker 1: claims while still asking why Maxwell circulated in Clinton-associated environments.
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  Speaker 1: They could have challenged Republican theatrics while still examining the
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  Speaker 1: Clinton Foundation contacts. They could have insisted that the committee
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  Speaker 1: stay focused on actual documents rather than bullshit theories. They
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  Speaker 1: could have pressed Hillary Clinton about what she remembered of
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  Speaker 1: Maxwell without suggesting that acquaintance itself prove wrongdoing. That would
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  Speaker 1: have demonstrated what competent oversight looks like. Instead, several members
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  Speaker 1: spent their public appearances emphasizing how illegitimate or unserious they
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  Speaker 1: considered the deposition, and the result was predictable. Anyone already suspicious...
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  Speaker 1: that powerful political figures receive special handling was given another
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  Speaker 1: reason to believe that Congress operates under different standards depending
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  Speaker 1: upon the name on the witness list. Bill Clinton's deposition
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  Speaker 1: should have been where Congress corrected that impression. His relationship
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  Speaker 1: with Epstein was documented enough to justify serious inquiry without
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  Speaker 1: resorting to speculation. The committee had photographs, flight information, and
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  Speaker 1: years of public reporting available to frame specific questions. Clinton
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  Speaker 1: was under oath for roughly six hours, given lawmakers ample
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to examine the timeline of his association with Epstein.
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  Speaker 1: Democrats had every right to challenge Republicans when questions became
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  Speaker 1: partisan or irrelevant, but they also had an independent obligation
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  Speaker 1: to interrogate Clinton's account themselves. Instead, the public messaging from
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  Speaker 1: Democrat members again became dominated by demands that Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: be brought before the committee. Trump may well be an
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  Speaker 1: appropriate witness given his own documented past association with Epstein,
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  Speaker 1: and Democrats are entitled to seek that testimony. But demanding
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  Speaker 1: another witness is not a substitute for thoroughly questioning the
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  Speaker 1: witness already sitting in front of you. Oversight becomes worthless
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  Speaker 1: when every deposition is treated primarily as ammunition for the
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  Speaker 1: next partisan argument. Alright folks, that's going to do it
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  Speaker 1: for part one, and in the next episode we'll pick
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  Speaker 1: up where we left off. All the information that goes
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  Speaker 1: with this episode can be found in the description box.