TV News LIES

Former President Bill Clinton denied wrongdoing in his relationship with accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein as House Republicans grilled him on Feb. 27 about the late financier's fundraising, numerous visits to the White House and pictures in Justice Department files.

Clinton, the first former president forced to testify before Congress, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in his opening statement he “had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing.” He dismissed the 20-year-old pictures from the department’s files and Epstein's estate.

“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said. “As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing – I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”

Upon exiting the session, Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky said questioning the former president was "very productive" while declining to elaborate.

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The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee plans to look into NPR's investigation revealing Epstein files related to President Trump are missing from the public record.

Asked if he is concerned about a possible Justice Department cover-up after NPR discovered documents related to an accusation of sexual abuse against President Trump weren't included in the database, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said Oversight Republicans plan to investigate.

"We're looking into the accusation made by the NPR," Comer told reporters during a Thursday press conference ahead of the committee's deposition of former first lady Hillary Clinton. "We don't know the answer to that. We know what the administration says. We're still looking to get a definitive answer on that."

NPR's previous reporting found internal FBI and Justice Department outline documents related to allegations from a woman who, according to documents within the database, claimed that around 1983, when she was around 13 years old, Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Trump, "who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out."

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Zohran Mamdani met with Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, during an unannounced trip to the nation’s capital.

On social media, the New York mayor said he had a “productive” meeting with the US president and he was “looking forward to building more housing in New York City”.

Mamdani also said he spoke to the president on the phone after the meeting to discuss the arrest of Elmina Aghayeva, a Columbia University student who was detained by federal immigration agents on Thursday.

“He has just informed me that she will be released imminently,” Mamdani said. The White House did not reply to the Guardian’s request for comment.

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Democrats on the House oversight and government reform committee announced on Tuesday the launch of an investigation to determine whether the US Department of Justice (DoJ) purposely withheld materials that pertain to allegations against Donald Trump in the government’s release of the Epstein files.

The lawmakers pledged to look into a report that Trump had been accused by a woman of sexually abusing her decades ago when she was a minor, and that material relating to the allegation in the Epstein files has not been released to the public.

The latest report refers to documents allegedly within the official records known as the Epstein files, where more than 3 million documents have been released relating to the late sex offender and disgraced New York financier, Jeffrey Epstein.

Congressman Robert Garcia of California, a Democrat and the ranking member of the committee, said in a statement that he reviewed unredacted evidence logs at the justice department and that “Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DoJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes”.

“Under the oversight committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public,” said Garcia. “Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the president of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover-up.”

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Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) shared the names of the six men he claimed were “likely incriminated” in the Epstein files on the House floor Tuesday.

Khanna’s comments come as the Justice Department has been under fire for how it has handled redactions in the documents, in some cases failing to conceal the names of victims while in other instances shielding the identities of those exchanging salacious emails with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Khanna and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who together co-sponsored the bill that mandated the public release of the files, both went Monday to review the unredacted version of the files now available to lawmakers at a Justice Department office. The duo told reporters that in their two-hour review they saw six names they thought could face criminal culpability based on the content of the files, with Massie describing the group as being “likely incriminated.”

Khanna, after revealing the six names on the House floor, said, “Now my question is, why did it take Thomas Massie and me going to the Justice Department to get these six men’s identities to become public? And if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those 3 million files.”

“Now my bill is clear. The Epstein Transparency Act requires them to unredact those FBI files, and yet the Justice Department said to me and to Congressman Massie, ‘We just uploaded whatever the FBI sent us.’ And guess what? The FBI sent scrubbed files. That means the survivor statement to the FBI naming rich and powerful men who went to Epstein’s Island, who went to his ranch, who went to his home and raped and abused underage girls or saw underage girls being paraded — they were all hidden. They were all redacted. It’s a little bit of a farce.”

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President Donald Trump and Senate Democrats struck a deal to avert a prolonged shutdown for most of the federal government, according to the president and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office.

The agreement will fund all of the government except for the Department of Homeland Security through next September. DHS will operate on a short-term funding bill for two weeks while lawmakers negotiate changes after public outrage over the Minneapolis shootings, sources said.

The Senate is aiming to vote today. The House, which returns to Washington on Monday, would then need to pass the legislation and send it to Trump’s desk for his signature.

Until the deal is finalized by both chambers, funding will temporarily lapse for multiple agencies starting tomorrow. The impact is expected to be minimal since most federal employees don’t work on the weekend.

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