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Lawmakers Speak After Questioning Hillary Clinton on Epstein; Top Oversight Democrat: We Want to Know Where the Missing Files Are; U.S. Iran Talks Aimed at Bridging Nuclear Enrichment Gaps. Aired 2:30- 3p ET

Aired February 26, 2026 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00]

REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA): And let's release the two and a half million files so we can know who else to talk to and so we can do right by the victims and actually bring justice. Thank you.

REP. YASSAMIN ANSARI (D-AZ): Thank you. I'm Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari representing Arizona's 3rd District. I am extremely, extremely appalled by the Republican chairman's behavior today and by the behavior of the entire committee and how unserious they are about this investigation.

Let's remind the country about what we are actually talking about. Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and a list of many rich and powerful people from around the United States and around the world abused and raped more than a thousand people who were children, many of whom were children at the time. And today we are sitting through an incredibly unserious clown show of a deposition where members of Congress and the Republican Party are more concerned about getting their photo op of Secretary Clinton than actually getting to the truth and holding anyone accountable.

I also want to talk about the reporting from this week and the fact that we now know that the Department of Justice in their ongoing cover up, the most egregious cover up in American history, intentionally seemed to have redacted more or withheld more than 50 pages of allegations from a minor against President Trump. Do not forget that Kash Patel went in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and said under oath that the FBI had no credible allegations of any other people being involved in this child sex trafficking operation. These documents that the Department of Justice intentionally has withheld from the American public in regard to the allegations against President Trump came from the FBI.

The FBI had interviewed this witness four times. You do not do that if it is not serious. So Kash Patel needs to be immediately brought back before the Oversight Committee.

He needs to answer these questions again. And we need answers immediately. Again, America is watching.

Young people in this country are watching to see if powerful people will continue to protect other powerful people and whether or not Congress will actually hold these perpetrators accountable. Thank you.

REP. WESLEY BELL (D-MO): Wesley Bell, Missouri's first congressional district, and as a former prosecutor, I've been involved in leading investigations and serious offenses, and this ain't it. What we're seeing is political theater. What we're seeing is folks that are looking for headlines and tweets as opposed to doing the business of going about getting justice for the victims in this case and survivors in this case, I should say, as well.

And I think that that's what I think some of our friends on the other side are losing sight of is that we are here to make certain that justice is served. And it's important for us as oversight members to do our job to ensure that all the evidence, any information is heard and that any victims, any survivors' voices are heard as well. And that's what we're supposed to be doing.

And so what we're seeing today is -- we have not learned one new thing. The secretary is here. She is more than happy to have all of you come in there and into this deposition and hear her out.

But there are those on the other side of the aisle who do not want that for whatever reason. And so we're going to continue to push for justice. We're going to continue to work to make certain that the victims and survivors are given their due and their voices are heard and that justice is ultimately served.

REP. JAMES WALKINSHAW (D-VA): Thank you. I'm James Walkinshaw from Virginia's 11th District. The Trump administration's treatment of the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes has been a callous disregard.

We've seen that in his refusal to release the files. We saw that this week at the State of the Union with his refusal to acknowledge the survivors who were in the chamber. One of the things that's been confirmed today is that in addition to having no relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Secretary Clinton had, has no relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell.

But there are important questions we should be asking the Trump administration about Ghislaine Maxwell. And I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us in asking these questions.

[14:35:00]

Why is it that Donald Trump has refused to rule out the pardon, the clemency that Ghislaine Maxwell is campaigning for? We held a deposition in this committee with Ghislaine Maxwell. She used that deposition as an opportunity to campaign for a pardon. Chairman Comer then walked out before many of you and gave her talking points as to why she should get a pardon.

Donald Trump needs to direct Attorney General Bondi to release all the files, to un-redact the illegal redactions. And he needs to unequivocally rule out a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, who is a monster convicted of child sex trafficking. Why has he not ruled out pardoning her? Why did the Deputy Attorney General spend hours with her? And then why was she transferred to a cushy lower security prison? Those are important questions we should be asking about Ghislaine Maxwell.

We no longer have to ask whether there's any relationship between Secretary Clinton and Ghislaine Maxwell. There was not.

REP ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA), RANKING MEMBER OF OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: I'm going to answer a couple of questions. I'm going to answer a question. One second.

One statement, one question. Last thing I'm going to say, and I'm going to begin with a question, is we want to make a very clear demand right now, which is that the full transcript, unedited, of the Secretary's questions and the answers need to be released by the majority in the next 24 hours. The public and the American people have a right to know exactly what she said, what questions were asked of her, and how she responded.

That's transparency. She herself requested that the press and the public be allowed into the deposition. That was denied.

And so at a very minimum, they need to immediately release the full transcript. And we're hopeful that tomorrow, for the former president, that the press would be allowed in and the public as well. That's been the request.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. How did that leaked photo get out? And do you believe there should be any repercussions?

GARCIA: Well, the repercussions should come from the majority and from Chairman Comer. I mean, it was very clear that that leaked photo was sent out by a member. I think it's not hard to figure out what member that was by looking at the photo.

And the fact that it was not just one photo, it was one photo and then a second post that also included a photo as well. And so that was completely against the rules. I think we're grateful that the Secretary continued the deposition, but not acceptable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Secretary has been clear that she has no relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. She said a few times that she has had encounters with Ghislaine Maxwell. She clarified what those meetings were like.

Did she talk about Ghislaine Maxwell attending her daughter's wedding? Did you get any new insights of those interactions?

GARCIA: I think obviously we can't get into specifics about the answers, but we will get all those as soon as the video is released. And so we have to be very careful about giving specifics about what was actually said in the deposition per committee rules, which is why we're demanding right now that James Comer and the Republicans release the full transcript where all the questions that were asked will be fully answered by Secretary Clinton. What I can say is that she, again, never met Jeffrey Epstein, never went to the island, never went to the plane, and had no knowledge of any of his crimes.

This is completely unacceptable.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it comes to Howard Lutnick, when Comer went in, he said it's a possibility. When I asked him if Lutnick could be subpoenaed, Mason said she had an e-mail printed out that she wanted to ask Clinton about. What was that line of questioning like in the room?

And was there any discussion about moving forward on a request or a subpoena for Lutnick?

GARCIA: We've made the request of Howard Lutnick. It is unacceptable that we have the Commerce Secretary, who has lied and lied and lied about his relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, the fact that he went to the island, he went on the plane, he went into business with Jeffrey Epstein and yet sat there in a chair with a reporter and lied to the American people. He should resign today.

He should be removed from office and, at minimum, should come before the committee. I think everyone's been clear that we need to hear from Howard Lutnick.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But what was the line in the room, the questioning in the room?

GARCIA: I want all of the Secretary's responses to be released immediately, or I want the press to be allowed in to get details on that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Give us a sense of what it was like in the room. Is this a very tense deposition? And also, can you give a little bit more color of what exactly happened when this moment on social media is shared?

Was there back and forth about letting the press inside the room?

GARCIA: So what I can say is, obviously, everybody was very taken aback by the committee rules, being essentially not enforced and certainly just broken immediately. That is not acceptable, especially when the Secretary said from day one that she wanted the press in the room. When the incident happened, I think this is something that can be reported, the Secretary's team continued to demand, even after the incident, to let the press into the room because what was important for her is that her answers to the questions not be edited, that the video not be edited.

And so we understand that and we're committed to getting this video transcript out immediately.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is she is answering every question?

[14:40:00]

GARCIA: To be clear, she's answering all the questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

GARCIA: To be clear, she's answering all the questions. I think I can safely say that she's not taking the fifth. Last question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In terms of her relationship, her understanding of her husband's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, is that something that she's been asked about?

GARCIA: I want the full transcripts to be released immediately. I think everything that she said in her testimony will be cleared. Thank you all very much.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, we are listening to some of the Democrats there on the House Oversight Committee and the ranking Democrat there talking about -- and this is midway through the deposition, right?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: They're going back in the room.

KEILAR: They're going back in the room. But they say that the former secretary of state is completely cooperating, answering questions in full faith and in good faith. And if they're asked about specifics of what she's saying, they say they want the full transcript out so that it could sort of speak for itself.

And they're demanding that the President be deposed in light of this reporting, which I'm just going to run through real quick because this is very important that people understand what is out there, what appears to be missing from what is public in the Epstein files. There are dozens of FBI witness interviews from the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein that appear to be missing from the files that DOJ released last month, according to a CNN review. CNN has gone through this and more than 90 of the 325 FBI witness interview records that were listed in an evidence log that was provided to Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney don't appear to be on the website.

And this includes three interviews related to a woman who told the FBI that Epstein had repeatedly abused her, starting when she was approximately 13, and who also accused Trump of sexually assaulting her. So you see them. They're coming out and they're trying to turn this around.

SCIUTTO: It's not insignificant information. It was interesting to hear Representative Garcia there say in his words that we've now set a new precedent about testimony from former presidents and presidents and saying, you know, repeating again a demand that Democrats have made is that they invite President Trump to testify, given the references to him in the documents.

Our MJ Lee is in Chappaqua. She's been following this. And MJ, I understand you just spoke to Representative Lauren Boebert, who we believe was the source of that photo shared from inside the room.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL ENTERPRISE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, you know, we are some three and a half hours into this deposition, and I think we're seeing the full partisan nature of this on full display already. Congresswoman Boebert, who appeared to have taken photos from inside that deposition room, which is supposed to be against the rules for the deposition, came out. And a number of reporters, including myself, we were asking her whether she was reprimanded at all for taking those photos and sharing them.

And she said that she wasn't reprimanded at all. And she, in fact, said, why not take photos from inside the room? And when I asked her or tried to ask her something of substance, I said, what from the deposition so far of Hillary Clinton has stood out to you? She simply responded, I admired her blue suit.

So again, this is the divide, the clear divide that we are seeing between how Republicans are handling this line of questioning versus the Democrats. I think the Democratic press conference that we just watched there was pretty clear in the messaging that they're trying to get out, which is that we have the wrong person sitting down for a deposition today.

Hillary Clinton, as she has repeatedly said, according to these Democratic lawmakers, doesn't know anything, doesn't have any information to share that would be helpful as far as Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's actions go. In fact, some of these members were saying they are appalled by how unserious the Republicans have been in handling this investigation.

And also just one note of color from our previous reporting, in terms of some of the kinds of questions that the former secretary has been getting, I was told that at one point, a Republican Congresswoman Mace asked Hillary Clinton a number of questions related to former President Bill Clinton, her husband, and his actions.

And at one point was asked, do you have feelings about young women massaging her husband? The former secretary of state responded by saying, "I'm not going to speculate for something that I wasn't present for, and I'm certainly not here to talk about my feelings." So that example in and of itself just goes to show you, obviously, this is not a pleasant experience for Hillary Clinton.

It certainly is not expected to be that way for Bill Clinton either. And it is why I think the Clinton team and their lawyers spent so many months trying to avoid exactly this scenario behind me. They didn't want to be asked these kinds of questions, particularly in this setting.

[14:45:00]

But now that they're doing it, they're trying to use it to their advantage that it is closed press, that there are a number of reporters here, lots of cameras, lots of media presence. They're not allowed in the room. And they're saying, well, if you want to be transparent, let the media in.

KEILAR: Interesting answer about the blue suit when there's more to talk about, maybe more to talk about.

SCIUTTO: More than fashion, yes. KEILAR: Maybe not today. We'll see, I guess, when we see the transcript. Certainly more tomorrow. We'll see with the Bill Clinton deposition.

MJ, thank you so much for the reporting. Live for us from Chappaqua. We appreciate it.

We'll be right back.

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[14:50:00]

KEILAR: Some major developments today as the U.S. and Iran hold their third round of negotiations in Geneva. Oman's foreign minister says the two sides made significant progress and will hold technical discussions on Iran's nuclear program next week in Vienna. A source telling CNN that U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff held direct talks with Iran's foreign minister earlier today. Normally, a mediator is involved, but the two sides here trying to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program even as the U.S. deploys its largest military force to the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq.

Joining us now, geopolitics expert Ian Bremmer. He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media. Ian, direct talks, are you encouraged by that?

IAN BREMMER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF EURASIA GROUP: We've had direct talks before. They've been not set up that way in the sense that it's usually like over the course of a handshake and then they have like a sideline during the handshake. I am interested that they are talking about technical talks to be set up next week.

That certainly wasn't the presumption going in. So, that's better than not. I'm not surprised that the Omanis have a positive spin on the discussions. They would be doing that in virtually any circumstance.

And the actual substance of progress from the talks, pretty limited. The Iranians wanted some level of sanctions relief, but came out of it understanding that it's politically impossible for the U.S. They're trying to put some special oil deals on offer for the American private sector. There's no discussion on ballistic missiles. There's no discussion on support for proxies. And the Iranians are still saying that they have to be able to have some kind of enrichment capabilities themselves, even if the inspectors are in.

So, it doesn't feel to me like we're on the brink of a breakthrough or a deal. The question is, is this all about to fall apart with the Americans engaging in strikes as early as this weekend? My friends in the Gulf think that it is, think that strikes are likely imminent, but it's possible that we end up with one more round of talks first.

KEILAR: I mean, that says a lot. They're poised to do that. Trump's demand, right, is that Iran never obtain a nuclear weapon.

Are U.S. demands on nuclear enrichment squishy at all? As Iran is saying, you know, no way, taking that off the table isn't something they're going to go for.

BREMMER: They haven't been squishy at all, but there's no reason for them to be until the moment that Trump would say, OK, I'm prepared to accept this as an opening off or let's move ahead, because the Americans have the cards. They're not deterred at all by the Iranians or Iranian threats. They've got the military capabilities in the region.

They've hit the Iranians a couple times before. Iran has done very little in return to the United States itself. The Israelis are fully on board.

And even American allies in the region who had been publicly very skittish about strikes, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, privately are now kind of resigned to it and prepared to be supportive of the United States, whatever the Americans need if strikes occur. So, I mean, frankly, I would expect zero flexibility from the United States until the point when Trump decides, you know what, actually, I don't want to make these strikes right now. I'm not going to order them.

I'm actually going to -- we're going to move ahead a little bit more on these talks. So for now, if there is flexibility, it's coming from the side of Tehran.

KEILAR: How do you think the president's threat of this strike, which, you know, as you say, we should be expecting, how do you think it's interacted with these negotiations in this moment?

BREMMER: That the president Trump is interacting with them?

KEILAR: No, how do you think it is -- how do you think it is interacted with Iran's calculus here? How do you think they have seen it and responded to it?

BREMMER: I think that anything short of actual decapitation strike broadly against the regime, they feel like they can handle -- they can live another day. Let's keep in mind that it was only months ago that the United States and Israel engaged in very serious strikes, not only against Iran's military and nuclear capabilities, but also against the leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. A lot of people died, significant damage to their military, and it didn't change their behavior on the ground one iota.

So this is a regime that has shown that they are capable of taking all but the most extreme pain. And they also know that the United States doesn't want oil prices at 80, at 90, at 100. They watched the State of the Union.

[14:55:00]

They saw how proud Trump was right at the beginning on how low gas prices are for Americans. It's one of the single things that he made the biggest deal out of in two hours of discussion. They have the ability to change that unilaterally. So even though they can't stop the Americans from attacking, they feel like they have a bit of leverage in keeping strikes from metastasizing into a broader Middle Eastern war.

And I think that's one of the reasons why we're unlikely to get to yes here. I'm not convinced that this is going to be a major confrontation, but I would be staggered if we don't have at least some level of U.S. strikes in the coming weeks. I think that that seems quite likely given where the two sides are right now.

KEILAR: Interesting point on the gas prices though. It was so noticeable, the president detailing the exact price that he saw in Iowa on a recent trip.

BREMMER: Under two dollars.

KEILAR: So yes, he was very proud of that. Ian Bremmer, great to have you. Thank you so much.

And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts after a quick break.

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