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AMY GOODMAN: Here is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, the Struggle and Peace Narrative. I’m Amy Goodman in Original York, joined by Democracy Now! cohost Juan González in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers one day of the country and around the globe.

AMY GOODMAN: We launch on the present time’s hiss with essentially the most up-to-the-minute on the Epstein data. Frail president Bill Clinton is testifying on the present time sooner than a congressional committee over his connections with serial sex perpetrator Jeffrey Epstein. This comes after Hillary Clinton denied ever meeting Epstein or radiant anything about his crimes all the plot through a bigger than six-hour closed-door deposition in entrance of the House Oversight Committee Thursday. Clinton spoke to journalists in Chappaqua, Original York, the day past after the closed-door deposition.

HILLARY CLINTON: I never met Jeffrey Epstein. In no plot had any connection or verbal exchange with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance. But without reference to they asked me, I did my very most effective to answer.

AMY GOODMAN: In her opening assertion, Clinton denounced the process as partisan political theater and accused House Republicans of using her as a prop to “distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cowl them up despite expert requires answers.” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee absorb known as on President Trump to even be deposed following mounting reviews that key documents linked to a girl who accused Trump of assaulting her whereas she used to be a minor, those documents lacking from the Justice Division free up of the Epstein data.

In response to an NPR investigation, the lacking data encompass 53 pages of FBI interviews and notes from conversations with the girl, who claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by each and each Trump and Epstein in the Eighties when she used to be appropriate 13 years aged. Here is Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia.

REP. ROBERT GARCIA: We are alive to to comprehend appropriate now the assign the lacking FBI data are. These are data that accuse the president of the US about serious, serious accusations around sexual abuse. And the proven truth that they don’t appear to be in the info and had been it sounds as if both eliminated or discarded is amazingly regarding. So we’re calling on Attorney Overall Pam Bondi to straight free up those data. And lastly, I are alive to to also add that this committee has now position a unusual precedent about talking to presidents and feeble presidents, and we’re stressful straight that we ask President Trump to testify in entrance of our committee and be deposed in entrance of oversight Republicans and Democrats.

AMY GOODMAN: Within the period in-between, the fallout from the Epstein data continues with a wave of resignations of extremely effective leaders in business, academia and politics over their ties to Epstein. On Thursday, President and CEO of the World Financial Forum Børge Brende said he used to be resigning. On Wednesday, feeble U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and feeble Harvard president Larry Summers said he would resign as professor at Harvard University on the finish of the semester.

Moreover Wednesday, feeble Nebraska Democratic senator Bob Kerrey confirmed he had resigned from his role as chair of a natty vitality startup. Nobel laureate Richard Axel also launched his resignation Tuesday as co-director of Columbia University’s neuroscience institute over his association with Epstein. And Bill Gates has also apologized to the crew of the Gates Foundation over his ties to Epstein.

For extra on all of this we’re joined by Barry Levine, investigative journalist and author of the guide The Spider: One day of the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Barry, thanks so noteworthy for being with us. Let’s launch off with these testimonies the day past and on the present time of the feeble president and first girl, feeble Secretary of Explain Hillary Clinton. She had wanted, she said, start hearing, but it surely used to be closed door in Chappaqua, the assign they are living. Might possibly perchance you sign the importance, what’s taking space with this hearing, and then transfer on to the lacking DOJ, Division of Justice, FBI data?

BARRY LEVINE: Certain, completely. I deem initially we’re going to search out the video of her testimony. As we saw with Jeffrey Epstein’s patron Leslie Wexner recently, they released it the day after. We’ll absorb to mute pick up the videotape of Hillary Clinton’s testimony on the present time. Bill Clinton is testifying on the present time. We’ll absorb to mute pick up his video of his testimony tomorrow.

I deem initially that it’s notable for the sake of the survivors that we pick up accountability on this case. Here is one thing they’ve been stressful for two a protracted time now. Surely, the extra we’re going to have the capability to search out out about folks’ interactions with Jeffrey Epstein and what they are able to absorb witnessed or what they are able to had been suggested by him is simply notable to the survivors. I deem, on the replacement hand, that there are loads of folks on this particular case who are extra notable attending to than feeble President Clinton or even our most up-to-the-minute president, Donald Trump. Both men absorb never been accused straight by any of the survivors that absorb completed extensive interviews with the FBI and the SDNY.

Now pointless to suppose each and each spent time with him, so it can perchance be wanted to search out out about their experiences with him, but I attain deem appropriate now for the Oversight Committee and the administration, this is piece of somewhat of a political theater that’s taking space. Surely with Hillary who, as we know, never met him straight. So that you just might me, it used to be wasted time when there are folks noteworthy closer to the case that we now must listen to from.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Barry Levine, what attain you acquire of the allegations of these interviews, FBI interviews with a young girl who claims she used to be assaulted when she used to be 13 and the proven truth that these absorb no longer been released?

BARRY LEVINE: That’s a truly lawful ask. It’s notable that the DOJ doesn’t withhold succor documents. From the laws that—the Transparency Act laws—on these data that President Trump signed into laws, the public and the survivors are entitled to search out the entire documents, at the side of these FBI—what’s known as FBI 302 stare reviews. These are interviews that were conducted. They must mute no longer be lacking. There’s no ask about that. And I’m thankful that NPR and 2 other data organizations pointed that out. And the DOJ says that they are wanting into that. So we’re going to have the capability to stare, with somewhat of luck, the lacking data.

Now, I must suppose that as any individual who has investigated this case for two a protracted time as an investigative journalist and then the author of my guide The Spider, I did commit a page and a half to this girl’s allegations that got here in a lawsuit in 2019 following Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest. I attain are alive to to search out the specifics. I deem, on the replacement hand, that the timeline doesn’t seem like staunch because the allegations heart on actions that she claimed took space with Jeffrey Epstein and feeble President Donald Trump succor in the Eighties, namely in the 1983 to 1985 fluctuate. All of my reporting shows that feeble president—or that Donald Trump didn’t absorb interplay with Jeffrey Epstein till around 1987, each and each in Palm Shoreline, Florida and in Original York. They continued to search out each and each other socially for the next 15 years sooner than—

AMY GOODMAN: But Barry Levine, isn’t the topic extra that the—all of these are allegations. We don’t know what’s lawful—

BARRY LEVINE: Yes. yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —but that the entire allegations against Epstein by this girl who alleges she used to be sexually assaulted by Epstein and as well Trump—those on Epstein, they continue to be in the info. Of us can advance to their have conclusions. However the documents around Trump were eliminated. And the DOJ says they’re no longer inviting in any investigation and that they released the entire data. In verbalize that’s the purpose—why were they eliminated, no longer whether or no longer they’re lawful or no longer.

BARRY LEVINE: Yes, and I agree. We wants with a view to search out whether or no longer these allegations are lawful or no longer, and naturally we now must continue to attain truth checking, as I absorb started to attain on this particular case and to find elements with the timeline. We mute must discover the info. And there’s no ask that one thing is rotten here regarding the Trump administration’s DOJ.

The laws namely states that cloth linked to men in these data, even supposing they are embarrassing to those folks regarding allegations, whether or no longer they are lawful or no longer, must be made on hand to the public and to the survivors for the sake of accountability. So we attain must discover each and each and each and each doc.

Top-of-the-line component that they are able to withhold succor that they are saying will doubtless be privileged might perchance be sensitive data linked to national security. All of us know that Jeffrey Epstein used to be inviting with many other international locations. There are allegations that he can absorb even been a distant places asset for Israel, for Iran, for Russia. Alternatively, we’re talking about incidents that took space domestically spirited this girl, so there might perchance be no national security linked to those documents. So by all capability, we’re going to have the capability to absorb to mute stare each and each and each and each sentence, without reference to how embarrassing the statements are, made by this girl against each and each Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Barry Levine, in keeping alongside with your years of investigation of Epstein, what stays to be uncovered about his affect and his accomplices that you just have got no longer but considered reported or gleaned from the documents so a long way released?

BARRY LEVINE: Correct ask. There are mute two million data that also haven’t been released. I’m in a position to’t have confidence that each and each and each and each of those data is linked to national security. Why they’re keeping succor, why the DOJ is keeping succor these additional documents, this is one thing that has been raised by Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, the cosponsors of the transparency bill. So we now must search out the entire lot be released.

Moreover to that, we realized one thing very tense recently from these data, and that’s that Jeffrey Epstein hid doubtless evidence in six storage lockers around the country. He had internal most investigators rob cloth out of his houses sooner than the police raids took space. Here goes succor as early as the police raid in Palm Shoreline, Florida, in 2005. Material used to be taken out—computer methods, CDs, videotapes, all somewhat a couple of forms of evidence, 29 deal with books. We don’t know to in the meantime if the FBI ever recovered that data in those storage lockers. And it appears to be like to me in line with my reporting that Jeffrey Epstein used to be tipped to the first police raid on his home in Palm Shoreline, Florida, in December 2005, and he had this cloth eliminated.

So we don’t know what’s in that cloth. We don’t know if there might be additional incriminating videotapes spirited any of the 20 men that Consultant Thomas Massie said were allegedly trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein. Rich and extremely effective folks, six billionaires, a political authorities decent, but one more person in politics, folks in entertainment. There are men who are available in the market who took piece in the sex trafficking that absorb no longer been introduced to justice. And for the sake of closure for the victims, we now must search out extra by the DOJ regarding the doubtless apprehension of these folks.

AMY GOODMAN: Very engaging that the House Oversight Committee went to Chappaqua, to the fatherland of the Clintons appropriate now, to grill them, the Republicans overwhelming there. I deem there were practically 60 folks that went up. But when it got here to Les Wexner who can absorb bankrolled the pedophile criminal Jeffrey Epstein—when the House Oversight Committee went to his Ohio mansion, no Republican member of Congress—can absorb bankrolled him to the tune of over $1 billion —went to search recommendation from him.

BARRY LEVINE: That’s completely staunch. Genuinely the money that Epstein used to be in an arena to spend to bankroll his sex trafficking ring for two a protracted time truly got here from Leslie Wexner. Leslie Wexner used to be listed as a doubtless co-conspirator. He denies all wrongdoing. He says he never saw or witnessed any sexual abuse by Jeffrey Epstein with any victims. And the DOJ, the SDNY never filed any actual charges against Leslie Wexner. But he used to be surely a truly notable person to determine up to.

Coming up in March, the Oversight Committee goes to depose two wanted men in Jeffrey Epstein’s existence—Darren Indyke, Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime lawyer; and Richard Kahn, his longtime accountant—who were with Jeffrey Epstein, worked for him for loads of, a protracted time. These were men that intricately knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s funds, his each day life, monies that were being sent out that currently Senator Ron Wyden is wanting into regarding bigger than $1 billion of suspicious wire transfers that took space through the years. So these men wants to be very enlightening regarding what we be taught from them.

And as I said, I attain deem calling—I deem it is expert to name President Trump. In two years, he traveled on between 16 and 27 flight legs with Jeffrey Epstein, socialized with him on these two journeys to Africa and as well Asia and Europe. As I said, he has no longer been accused straight by any of the victims that we now absorb investigated, so I don’t deem we’re going to be taught any well-known bombshells from his deposition on the present time. But again, I attain deem that calling each and each of them used to be truly about Donald Trump going after his perceived enemies.

AMY GOODMAN: Barry Levine, I are alive to to thanks for being with us, investigative journalist and author of the guide The Spider: One day of the Tangled Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Coming up, a Columbia undergraduate pupil is arrested by ICE in her residential housing after brokers using spurious pretenses got into her house constructing. Support in a minute.

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