Melania Trump issues surprise call for public Congressional depositions of Epstein survivors

[0:00] And joining me now, MSNOW Washington correspondent and host of The Weekend Morning, Jackie Alamani. [0:06] Jackie, it's great to see you. Great to have you. So tell us, set the scene here, [0:12] why the First Lady felt the need to make a speech, make remarks of this kind? [0:18] Antonia, that is a very good question that I think a lot of White House reporters are trying [0:23] to figure out right now. I just pinged as many sources as possible to figure out what the impetus [0:27] for this statement was. We know that it appeared on her schedule yesterday. It was very, it was [0:35] billed in a very cryptic way. We weren't aware of what the contents of the statement would be, [0:40] but it's a fairly remarkable statement, as we all just listened to, denying any connection to the [0:48] things that Epstein did, acknowledging that there was an email that was released in the Epstein files, [0:53] but that it didn't amount to an actual relationship. And then making a very extraordinary call at the [1:00] end of her comments to allow the victims to have their day, have a public hearing, to call on Congress [1:09] to provide the women who've been victimized by Epstein with this public hearing that is centered [1:13] around the survivors, giving them an opportunity to testify under oath in front of Congress with the [1:19] power of sworn testimony. This is a dramatically different message that we've been hearing from [1:24] the rest of the White House, especially from her husband, who has privately and publicly essentially [1:30] instructed people what amounts to an order, a directive to move on from the issue. Pam Bondi, [1:36] Trump's now former attorney general, who was ousted from her position last week, is now refusing to [1:43] comply with a congressionally released subpoena to appear before Congress next week to provide [1:49] testimony on what exactly happened with the administration's promise to release the Epstein [1:54] files and why we still haven't seen the release of the full unredacted files. We also have seen a [2:00] number of other subpoenas that are in the pipeline. Bill Gates is now set to test to commit to a [2:05] transcribed interview in June. And again, there are a lot of question marks here, but you all heard [2:15] Melania Trump, in her own words, come out and try to set the record straight. Thank you, Jackie. And [2:23] I'm going to bring into the conversation MSNOW senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Lisa, help me [2:29] understand. I just asked Jackie basically another version of this exact question about what motivated the [2:35] First Lady to do this, to make a speech of this kind. It left me wondering, as someone who had very [2:41] little time to prepare, we haven't known about this coming for days. You know, as Jackie mentioned, [2:45] this was just put on her calendar yesterday. Is there not a possibility of a Streisand effect here, [2:51] where for people who were not wondering about a connection between Melania Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, [2:57] that now they are perhaps going to see that and now go look at four photos and images and rumors of the [3:04] exact natures that she was describing? You know, we don't even need to look for photos or images. [3:09] The first thing that I was thinking about is there is an email in the files as produced by the [3:14] Department of Justice, which is a note from Melania Trump to Ghislaine Maxwell that references [3:20] the New York Magazine article in 2002 that is one of the first profiles of Jeffrey Epstein. It was written [3:26] by Landon Thomas, who is a reporter that he became friends with, who later joined the New York Times. [3:31] The files are replete with emails between Jeffrey Epstein and Landon Thomas at a later point in [3:36] time. But the article at the time is infamous among those of us who cover Jeffrey Epstein and [3:41] Ghislaine Maxwell. Why? Because it's the article in which then friend of Epstein, Donald Trump, [3:48] is interviewed by Landon Thomas and says, Epstein has quite a social life. He enjoys beautiful women [3:56] as much as I do. But many of them are on the younger side. It's that quote that has led to [4:03] plenty of speculation about how much Donald Trump saw and knew about Jeffrey Epstein's activities and [4:10] how close, in fact, the men were. Melania Trump today, Antonia, saying that email is in fact hers. [4:17] Many people had wondered whether that was an email that came from someone else, [4:21] whether it was falsified. Melania Trump today authenticating that email, essentially saying, [4:26] we were acquaintances. This is not the sort of correspondence between close friends. [4:31] I knew her socially as people do in New York and Palm Beach. I would say people of a certain [4:36] social set and circle know one another from their overlapping circles in New York and Palm Beach. [4:42] But we don't know what precipitated this today. And of course, Melania Trump closing out her press [4:47] conference today by calling for something that marks a sharp departure from Trump administration [4:52] policy, Department of Justice suggestions for the last several months, saying there should be a public [4:57] hearing that is centered on the survivors in that story. What I hear in that is whatever Melania [5:03] Trump thinks is coming on the horizon in terms of a future story, perhaps about her, she wants to turn [5:09] the page on that and focus on survivors. Certainly welcome news to survivors who have wanted to have one [5:15] of those hearings. I have been hearing rumblings, for example, that the host oversight committee might [5:20] conduct a field hearing in Palm Beach to do exactly that, to center the stories of women who were minor [5:26] victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Glenn Maxwell in Florida in the mid 2000s. But now you have Melania [5:32] Trump, the first lady, saying she would endorse something like that and maybe even suggesting that [5:37] rather than it coming from Congress, this is something that this White House, this Department of Justice [5:43] would sponsor on its own, Antonia. Jackie, is that question, what Lisa just raised there, [5:49] the possibility here that the first lady is trying to get ahead of something that we don't fully know [5:54] about yet, is that what the White House Corps is trying to figure out on the ground right now? [6:00] That's exactly right, Antonia. It's literally something I just texted to my our fellow colleagues. [6:07] And it's something that we've seen in the past this White House do, or at least this president, [6:11] when they are read through and are trying to preempt a story. For example, just, I believe it was a month [6:19] ago, Donald Trump took to Truth Social to criticize Maggie Haberman, referring to her in pretty vile, [6:28] disrespectful terms on his Truth Social. But at the time, people didn't really understand the context [6:34] and why he was taking that moment to criticize her as she has been on book leave and hasn't [6:41] had any recent pieces published on him for him to be critical of. As we found out yesterday, [6:46] Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan published a pretty blockbuster play-by-play of reporting of what had [6:52] happened and what went down in the Situation Room in the lead-up to the war, to going to war with Iran. [6:58] And so this is a White House. These are principles that sometimes do use their platform to try to get [7:06] ahead of a story and to try to set the record straight. But we should be very clear, we are not [7:10] aware of that in this moment. We're not sure what precipitated the First Lady giving this statement. [7:18] I'm going to bring into the conversation now as well MSNOW congressional reporter Michael Schnell. [7:25] Michael, I want to get your readout from Capitol Hill here, especially given the context, [7:31] Jackie and Lisa both touched on this, that Bondi is, as of now, still refusing to testify under oath, [7:37] Democrats demanding. They've been very, very eager to get honest answers, to have that opportunity to [7:44] to ask her a litany of questions. How do you read what the First Lady is doing here against the backdrop [7:52] of everything else that's happening in Congress, against the backdrop, too, of the reality that [7:57] Blanche just days ago said basically he wants to turn the page here. The DOJ [8:02] wants to move on in a way from the Epstein story. [8:05] Yeah, I think, Antonia, it just underscores that this Epstein story has just been so omnipresent [8:10] throughout Washington and it has had such a lifetime and such a snowball here in the nation's capital. [8:16] I mean, it was just in November where after the House had held off on voting on the legislation to [8:23] force the release of the Epstein files, it passed with all but one vote in the House and unanimously in [8:28] the Senate setting off what has been this domino effect both on Capitol Hill and in other areas and [8:33] even outside the country with the the impacts that those files in this entire story has had. [8:39] But I think this all brings back to the fact that there are two things, one thing in particular [8:42] that the First Lady had mentioned, asking for public hearings with the victims. I mean, [8:48] that is so significant. We're going to have to see if there is any follow through up on Capitol Hill. [8:52] It's worth noting right now Republicans have the majority, which means that it would have to be [8:56] a GOP-led effort to hold up that hearing. We're going to be out to sources to find out if there's [9:01] any interest given this push by the First Lady, but also the fact that this comes and these comments [9:06] come as it's still unclear if we're going to hear from former Attorney General Pam Bondi [9:10] under oath or rather if if the Oversight Committee will as part of the Epstein investigation. It was [9:16] last month in March where five Republicans had joined with Democrats to issue that subpoena for [9:22] Pam Bondi, which was a huge surprise in a huge moment in it of itself. And then after President [9:27] Trump had announced last week that he would be removing Pam Bondi from her post, there's been [9:31] this question of, well, will she or won't she show up for that deposition? It's scheduled for April 14th. [9:37] We heard from the House Oversight Committee earlier this week that she was won't be appearing on April [9:42] 14th. It's because the DOJ, it's understanding and analysis of the situation is that because [9:48] Attorney General Pam Bondi is no longer the Attorney General, she no longer needs to show up per that [9:53] subpoena. But that analysis has come under such scrutiny. We're hearing from Democrats who believe [9:59] that because the motion to subpoena Pam Bondi was made for the honorable Pam Bondi, but Republicans saying [10:05] that the actual subpoena said the Attorney General, a lot of questions of if she will show up. [10:10] Lisa, you are one of the hardest working reporters on this story. I can see you doing the work to get [10:17] in touch with people as we speak. Have you been able to hear from survivors? Have they had the chance [10:22] to see the First Lady's remarks? Do you know how they're processing all this right now? [10:27] I don't. I have not talked to a survivor yet. I have reached out to various representatives of [10:31] survivors. I can tell you that one of them, someone who runs an organization with which many of these [10:37] survivors are affiliated, that has organized advocacy around it, said this caught her by as [10:42] much surprise as it is catching us. But I want to situate this, Antonio, if I can, in the larger picture [10:47] of what's going on in the Epstein investigation right now. Michael was just talking about the [10:52] anticipated appearance of Pam Bondi on April 14th, which we now know is not going to happen on that date. [10:58] But I think one thing that our viewers need to understand is nothing is supposed to happen [11:02] before April 30th, when the next witness will be there. His name is Ted Waite. He was Ghislaine [11:07] Maxwell's boyfriend between 2003-2010. Whether there's any relationship between anticipation of that, [11:14] we don't know.