House Democrats release Epstein papers saying Trump 'knew about the girls'

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00:00To Washington, Fraser Jackson, our correspondent there, joins us live.

00:03Good evening, Fraser. This is a bombshell moment.

00:05What's the word in Washington about the possible impact this could have on President Donald J. Trump?

00:14It is, but I think we need to temper some expectations here.

00:17Some of the more outlandish headlines that we've been seeing in the last couple of days,

00:21talking in the last couple of hours, rather, talking about Donald Trump knowing about the sexual abuse.

00:25It's believed that that email that that is taken from is actually Donald Trump knowing about the fact

00:30that girls were being taken from the staff that were on Mar-a-Lago and being, therefore, employed by Jeffrey Epstein.

00:38Of course, the Democrats are arguing that that signals that he knew about the sexual abuse,

00:43but the kind of gray area comes because the Republicans are basically pushing back against that claim.

00:48So there is still some smoke here, but whether there is a fire is the question that everybody really,

00:55is still asking.

00:56Now, for their part, the White House is pushing back on these allegations.

01:00They are saying that this is a fake narrative and a distraction technique from the government shutdown,

01:05which is in the process of being lifted at the moment.

01:08But Democrats say that they believe that this is another piece of evidence against Donald Trump

01:13and that he knew about what was going on with Jeffrey Epstein,

01:16the man who, of course, has been a convicted sex trafficker,

01:19and, indeed, his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year term for her part in his crimes.

01:26So there is still a lot of wood on the fire, as it were,

01:30but whether this is the smoking gun that the Democrats are looking for,

01:34I don't think it's fully quite there yet.

01:36Interesting phrase.

01:38And no sympathy expressed for any of the victims in the White House comments.

01:41It was purely about basically justifying Trump's position and calling it a spear

01:45and trying to damage the Democrats.

01:48I'm wondering if there's any personal comment coming from Trump,

01:50presumably nothing on his social media.

01:55So far, Donald Trump uncharacteristically quiet on these kind of things.

01:59And quite often, when Donald Trump has a keen sense that something is going to be a significant story,

02:04he tends to lay low for a while.

02:06And, indeed, all we've heard about it from him in the last couple of hours since this story broke

02:10is about some people that he's putting forward for various positions within his administration

02:15and the judiciary more widely.

02:17So there's been no official comment from Trump himself.

02:20However, we are likely to get that to change in a few hours

02:23when the press pool will be brought into a dinner that Donald Trump is holding here at the White House.

02:28Whether that's actually going to be set up in a way that the press will be able to launch questions at him

02:32and whether, indeed, he will reply is what we're all waiting for.

02:35But right now, all we have is the comment from the White House and Caroline Levitt herself,

02:39but nothing directly from the president.

02:41And this all originates from some email communication between Michael Wolff,

02:46the author of a book about the first Trump White House,

02:49and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's erstwhile girlfriend and co-conspirator in sex trafficking

02:55and grooming of underage girls for his abuse.

02:59Is there any sense, Fraser, from what we've seen, what we've heard,

03:02and what you're hearing there, that Donald Trump is any more involved in this

03:06than he might have admitted to have been?

03:11Well, Donald Trump, of course, has rejected this many times

03:15over the course of the last few months and years,

03:18especially since this ferroir kind of re-kicked up again over the summer.

03:21He was constantly frustrated that these allegations and this story kept being brought up,

03:26but, of course, it has refused to go away,

03:28and it's been something that his base is still heavily involved in,

03:33in terms of their interest in this story.

03:36I think the key interesting point that we're hearing in the last couple of days

03:40is reporting from Politico, like Ghislaine Maxwell,

03:43having had an interview with the Deputy Attorney General of the United States just months ago,

03:48Todd Blanche, a man who is Donald Trump's former lawyer.

03:51That in itself, that interview with Ghislaine Maxwell was unprecedented,

03:54and since then, there was reporting from Politico that she's had preferential treatment in prison,

04:00and that one of the senior members of the prison there had said to Politico

04:05that they were sick of being treated like Ghislaine Maxwell's bitch.

04:09That actually got to play with puppies and have other preferential treatment,

04:13and now we hear from that Politico report as well

04:15that she is trying to put forward some paperwork to Donald Trump to get her sentence commuted,

04:21so effectively asking for a pardoning from Donald Trump,

04:25especially after her Supreme Court case was rejected by the Supreme Court,

04:28it appears that Donald Trump now could be her only way out of jail.

04:32Fraser Jackson in Washington.

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