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Iran Nuclear Talks; Kash Patel Reportedly Fires FBI Agents Over Mar-a-Lago Investigation; Justice Department Withholding Epstein Documents?; House to Question Hillary Clinton. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired February 26, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): And demanding that the person who actually appears more times in the files than the former president, who we want to speak with, is President Donald Trump.

And so let's get President Trump in front of our committee to answer the questions that are being asked across this country from survivors and from those who have been brutally attacked and raped, sometimes as children.

Let's release the files. And I will answer one or two questions. Thank you.

QUESTION: So, should the Clintons have come forward sooner to testify and be deposed in front of the committee? And also what are the discussions with Republicans about bringing other administration officials like Lutnick who are mentioned in these files before lawmakers?

GARCIA: We want to hear from Howard Lutnick. Howard Lutnick, of course, said that he had stopped communicating with Epstein, our commerce secretary, then goes on to visit Epstein's island, communicate with him, go into business with him, all of which was not disclosed.

He should not be the commerce secretary right now. As it relates to the questions about the location, the location was selected by Republicans. The majority controls where and how these depositions are done. We want to continue hearing from folks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

QUESTION: Just a question. What could they possibly ask Hillary Clinton all day? They mentioned Maxwell at the wedding. And what questions -- you said you're happy to talk to anyone. What questions do you have for Hillary Clinton, given that she said she has no connection?

GARCIA: We're going to give the secretary an opportunity to clarify any questions that Republicans might have, that we might have. Look, if she has any information that could be helpful to the investigation, we want to hear that. And so we're going to find out here. We will report back with actually being asked, but, broadly speaking,

anyone that has any information, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, we want a nonpartisan investigation. And that's going to include ensuring that President Trump comes before our committee.

Yes.

QUESTION: Do you have questions about the Clinton Global Initiative, the fund-raising involved?

GARCIA: There's going to be questions asked about that. So thank you very much. We will come back out. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, we just heard from Democrats there on the House Oversight Committee before they speak with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Want to note neither Bill or Hillary Clinton up and accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing related to Epstein.

I want to bring in CNN senior reporter Annie Grayer, who has been tracking all of this. She is there.

Bring us in behind those closed doors, Annie. How will things unfold today?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Pamela, we are expecting this deposition to go for hours in the building behind me, where Hillary Clinton will be questioned by both Democrat and Republican lawmakers.

This deposition will be filmed, there will be a transcript. And so far we know of at least five major categories that Hillary Clinton is going to be asked about.

And they include the alleged mismanagement of the federal government's investigation into Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Epstein 2019 death, the ways the federal government could effectively combat sex trafficking rings, how Epstein and Maxwell sought to curry favor to protect their legal activities, and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.

Now, it was a long road to get here. Hillary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, did not want to have to testify as part of this investigation. They argued that they were being singled out for political purposes. Hillary Clinton says that she has never met Jeffrey Epstein, that she only briefly interacted with Maxwell.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton submitted sworn statements and said that that should be enough, compared to other witnesses, who were able to just submit those statements. But Comer wanted the Clintons to appear under his terms for depositions, and the Clintons only caved and agreed to those terms once the House Oversight Committee was going to move forward in a bipartisan manner to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress.

Take a listen to House Oversight chair James Comer, how he framed getting to this point in the process just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We moved to hold the Clintons in contempt, and I think one thing that surprised the Clintons, they assumed the Democrats on the committee would vote in a partisan manner and not vote to hold the Clintons in contempt.

And what they learned was a majority of the Democrats on the committee either voted to hold the Clintons in contempt or voted present. And I think that's a statement that this investigation is serious. It is a bipartisan investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRAYER: So we will see how Hillary Clinton answers the questions that both Republicans and Democrats will have for her, Pamela.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Annie Grayer, thank you very, very much.

Happening now: The U.S. Justice Department is reviewing whether Epstein-related documents mentioning President Trump were improperly withheld from public release.

And this comes after several news outlets, including CNN, reported that witness accounts from the criminal trial of Epstein co- conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell appear to be missing from the massive trove of files. Among the absent records, three interviews related to a woman who accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her decades ago, when she was a minor.

[11:05:03]

President Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. And the White House called the allegations -- quote -- "false and sensationalist."

Joining us now to discuss is CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.

Elliot, you have worked for the Justice Department. What's your read on this situation?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: My read on the situation is that the Justice Department has botched this from day one, when the attorney general of the United States went out indicating that she had materials and would be the most transparent that the Justice Department had been in history.

They brought this upon themselves. Now, a few things. One, we should be clear here that these allegations against the president are a long time ago and have not been verified. However, the Justice Department has been inconsistent with what they have put out. There was -- there were things that were put online and then pulled

back and some redactions were inconsistent. And so people have a right to be concerned and have a right to ask questions about how properly they have handled all of this.

BROWN: And, as you heard the Democrat there Yassamin Ansari say, even when it comes to the law that was passed by Congress, signed into law by the president, in their view, DOJ has not complied with it.

WILLIAMS: Right.

BROWN: The Justice Department said in a statement -- quote -- "Should any document be found or been improperly tagged in the review process and is responsive to the act, the department will, of course, publish it, consistent with the law."

So, "consistent with the law," how much wiggle room could they have with the law that -- as written?

WILLIAMS: Right.

So, there are three big exceptions to information that the Justice Department would put online, number one, things that are duplicates, documents that might have appeared somewhere else, but the documents that they're looking for just appeared somewhere else in the records, so number one.

Number two, privileged documents, a document that might have contained some attorney-client privilege or something like that. They can withhold that document, and also documents, and here's the big one, that are the subject of an open investigation.

So perhaps there is an easy explanation here that these documents might have appeared somewhere else in the record or they're the subject of an investigation, but it's just not clear. And because of the inconsistency with which the Justice Department has put records out and pulled some back, again, it's hard to trust exactly what's coming out of there and if they would release whatever they have.

BROWN: I mean, realistically, how much could DOJ hide behind the ongoing investigation?

WILLIAMS: I mean, they could, because in an investigation -- right.

BROWN: Yes, because we know President Trump had called on DOJ to investigate Democrats. Pam Bondi said she would, appointed...

WILLIAMS: Right.

BROWN: So it's...

WILLIAMS: Yes. And the legal standard for opening an investigation is remarkably low.

BROWN: Right.

WILLIAMS: They merely have to just open an investigation.

Now, that's implying a level of sneaky dealing by the Justice Department that may or may not be there. But the simple fact is, they just have not handled this well and people have a right to have questions.

BLITZER: Elliot, I'm just curious. So what do you think we will actually learn from the depositions of Hillary Clinton before the House Oversight Committee that's happening right now, the deposition of Hillary Clinton today, Bill Clinton tomorrow? What do you think we're going to learn?

WILLIAMS: It's hard to say.

Now, I would note -- and this was the point that I guess -- I think it was Chairman Comer made a moment ago -- that there is broad bipartisan concern about certainly whether it's questions about Bill Clinton's conduct or at least questions about what Bill Clinton's conduct might or might not have been, such that it's not a partisan witch-hunt in the sense that many, many of these investigations have been.

I think people can characterize that. Now, how much the Clintons are willing to put on the record, do they take the Fifth, as is one's right when they are being questioned by Congress? That's an open question and we just don't know what will come of it.

BLITZER: One quick question. We heard some of the Democratic members of the Oversight Committee in Chappaqua before this deposition begins suggest there's a White House cover-up their words, a White House cover-up, going on right now.

And they want Trump to actually come before the Oversight Committee to testify as well. What are the prospects of that?

WILLIAMS: I think the prospects are remarkably low.

The -- certainly, the White House has not behaved in a manner that suggests that they have been fully transparent, but I want to be clear there's a major separation of powers question that courts would have to sort out to have a sitting president come and testify before Congress.

Now, it could happen and I'm not saying that it should not, but it's not an easy thing that they can pick up the call -- pick up the phone and call the president and have him just show up.

BROWN: Well, and we should note, Comer was chairman of Oversight when he was doing the Biden investigation, and he didn't...

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Call the president himself.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes. Right. So if he didn't do it for Biden, he's not going to...

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Odds are remarkably low...

BROWN: Low that he would do it for Trump.

WILLIAMS: ... that you would call a sitting president to testify before Congress, for a host of reasons legally.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: Right.

All right, Elliot Williams, thank you so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Also new this morning, CNN has learned that FBI Director Kash Patel has ordered the firing of at least 10 FBI employees.

Sources tell CNN all were involved in the investigation of President Trump and his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a- Lago. That investigation under special counsel Jack Smith led to criminal charges against Trump and two of his employees.

[11:10:11]

CNN justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with us in this situation. Walk us through your latest reporting.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are 10 agents and an analyst who were working on this investigation, the Mar- a-Lago investigation, Wolf, which, as you pointed out, related in -- resulted in charges against the president and against two of his employees.

And, of course, ultimately, they were dismissed. But this is part of a broader set of purges that the FBI has been doing since the beginning of the second Trump term. And, in this case, these agents and analysts were working on this Mar-a-Lago case.

Now, one of the things that we know is ongoing now is just a broader investigation into what the FBI believes. Now, the current leadership of the FBI and Kash Patel believes is some kind of misconduct in the way some of these investigative steps were taken.

And one of the things that he's pointing to is what he says were flimsy reasons, legal reasons why the FBI obtained his communications, including e-mails, his toll records, his telephone toll records, not only his, but also Susie Wiles, who at the time, at some point in 2022, 2023, started working for the -- what was going to beat Donald Trump's new campaign.

At the time, she was a private citizen. And what we know is very little about exactly what that entails. We know that, for instance, sources inside the FBI are telling us that they were able to record a phone call between Susie Wiles and her lawyer with the consent of her attorney, at least according to people we have talked to.

And so the question remains, what exactly, what permissions did they have? Was this approved by a judge? How far does this go? We know that the FBI is still investigating this. And we don't know where this ends as far as whether they believe there's wrongdoing, what they do about that.

BLITZER: These were career FBI agents who were ordered to investigate the highly classified documents that were floating around Mar-a-Lago in the bathroom and closets, other places as well, and they were doing their job.

PEREZ: They were doing their job and they were being told to do this. They're not -- agents don't necessarily just go open and subpoena things without getting approval. It's not how it works.

And I should note, Wolf, that in the case of Kash Patel, he went to the grand jury with some limited immunity, so his lawyer would have been privy to some of the information that the government had. Before they -- before he went to the grand jury, they would have given him some of the information that they already possessed because there was a negotiation that happened.

I also should note that it's routine when you're doing an investigation that you would want to know -- for instance, this was an investigation of Donald Trump and some of his employees. You would want to know all of the people he was working with, who he was talking to, and want a complete picture.

So it's not unusual for you to subpoena phone records and e-mails and so on as part of this. These people were not targets. It's not -- no indication that Susie Wiles or Kash Patel were targets of this investigation.

BLITZER: Potentially a lot of people who were roaming around Mar-a- Lago did not have top secret security clearances to read these documents.

PEREZ: Right. That was part of the reason why this case went as far as it did...

BLITZER: Yes.

PEREZ: ... because there was very minimal security as to the handling of these documents.

BLITZER: Evan Perez, thank you very, very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf, still ahead: Iran is promising flexibility as it holds a new round of talks with the U.S. over its nuclear program. What the U.S. actually wants from Iran as it builds up an unprecedented military presence there in the region.

BLITZER: Plus: new CNN reporting after the U.S. Justice Department left dozens of nude photos and passports from the Epstein files online and unredacted for weeks. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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[11:18:48]

BLITZER: There's more breaking news.

U.S. and Iranian negotiators have been holding a new round of nuclear talks. The talks come as the U.S. is preparing for a possible military strike against Iran with a huge, huge buildup of U.S. forces in the region right now.

The results of today's talks could help the Trump administration decide whether to strike Iran. President Trump says he wants the Islamic Republic to declare that it will never have a nuclear weapon, but Iran says it wants to continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. That's what they say.

Joining us now here in THE SITUATION ROOM is CNN Global Affairs analyst Brett McGurk.

Brett, thanks so much for joining us.

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Hi, Wolf.

BLITZER: What's your read today on the likelihood that these Oman- facilitated talks between the U.S. and Iran might achieve a deal?

MCGURK: Yes, Wolf, look, I have great respect for anyone doing this work and what Jared and Steve are trying to do, and I know the foreign minister of Oman quite well. I've done these indirect talks with the Iranians.

As I'm kind of reading things, though, I just -- I don't see this reaching a result. First of all, the complex matter is extremely complex. It's nuclear physics. It's sanctions. So it takes time to work these things out. But it looks like the two sides, Wolf, are very far apart. And I'm hopeful there can be a breakthrough.

[11:20:01]

I would suspect what will come out of today is a lot of statements, including from the Omanis, that gaps narrowed, there's progress, because the Iranians want to kind of keep this going, and perhaps it will go on for another week or two, but I don't see this coming to a conclusion.

BLITZER: Didn't Trump basically say after that so-called 12-day war, when the U.S. and Israel launched these strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, that Iran's nuclear program was effectively destroyed?

MCGURK: It's kind of crazy that we're talking just about the nuclear, because let's think about how we got here. This all started with those protests in late December, early January,

the Iranian people rising up saying, we want to change our government, and then the Iranian regime cracking down, killing thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people, and President Trump putting that warning down.

That led to the military deployment. There was then a lot of effort in the region, regional players saying, hey, let's get a process going, U.S. and Iran. The U.S. said, OK, we need to talk about treatment of your own people, support for terrorism, missiles, and your nuclear program.

Iran said, no, we're only going to talk about our nuclear program. The U.S. said, OK, we will talk about our nuclear program, but a different format. Let's do talks in Turkey, maybe UAE, not the Oman-based indirect talks. Iran said, no, we need the Oman-based indirect talks. The U.S. said, OK, we will do that.

Then the U.S. said, well, we're at nuclear. Oman is mediating, but you really got to give up your enrichment program. Iran said, no, we're going to keep our enrichment program. So this is how -- I have negotiated with Iranians before. It's kind of how it goes. You get pigeonholed into a very narrow agenda, and then the Iranians demand massive sanctions relief for very small steps.

I sense that's what's happening here, and, therefore, unfortunately, I don't see this leading to a diplomatic off-ramp.

BLITZER: So if it doesn't lead to a diplomatic off-wing, there's going to be a war?

MCGURK: Well, I see the president will have to make a decision because this forward-deployed force, it can sit there for some time, but it can't stay there forever. And, eventually, you have to make a decision whether or not to actually do a military strike or to pull the force back.

I still sense where this is heading, Wolf, and only the president can decide. And, again, we all hope for a diplomatic breakthrough, but we're probably heading for some military operation. I think that would include the missiles. I think it would include what's left of the nuclear program.

I do think the June strikes were very effective. And don't forget the Iranian people in that massacre. I think the Basij militia and the IRGC, which kind of led that crackdown, I would suspect those would be on the target list as well.

BLITZER: Thousands of Iranians who were protesting were killed by the regime.

MCGURK: Exactly.

In the first Trump administration, when Bashar Al-Assad, the president of Syria, he used sarin gas and killed about 100 Syrians, President Trump fired 57 Tomahawk missiles into Syria. The objective was not regime change. It was to say, hey, that kind of thing won't stand and to deter future use of chemical weapons.

So there's an argument here for a deterrent strike, so that Iran does not do another crackdown when these protests start again. But, look, I think the president got himself in a little bit of a box. President Eisenhower used to say, never talk about military action before all the facts are laid out cold and hard.

And it seems here the president threatened military action. Then you have this massive deployment and they're still talking about the facts and kind of where this might go. So I don't think this is an imminent decision. I think this might play out for some time.

But certainly over the coming weeks, by mid-March, you're going to get a decision point.

BLITZER: And Trump still refuses to say what the end goal of the U.S. would be.

MCGURK: Yes.

And I have quoted before Carl von Clausewitz. Any civilian leader ordering military action has to be clear in his mind precisely what the objectives are. If you're not clear on the objectives as events unfold, that's how you get into mission creep and the objectives tend to expand.

And so that is also a concern here.

BLITZER: One quick final question before I let you go, Brett. If the military operation begins, would Israel launch the first strikes, would the U.S. launch the first strikes, or would they coordinate and do it together?

MCGURK: This is also an open question, Wolf.

Secretary Rubio is supposed to be in Israel, it has been said, early next week for talks about that. I think the U.S. would like to do a U.S.-only operation, but the Israelis are really concerned about one issue right here, the missiles.

BLITZER: That could hit Tel Aviv, yes.

MCGURK: You saw what the missiles can do in the June war, and Israel has said we are not going to allow those missiles to continue to proliferate.

I would say one thing about the missile program. It's under Chapter 7 U.N. sanctions. And the Iranians are providing drone and missile technology to Russia for use in Ukraine. There's kind of a bigger picture here.

But I think a military action has to be well-defined, well-planned, discrete with clear objectives, and I'm still not seeing that.

BLITZER: We will see if that unfolds.

All right, thanks very much, Brett McGurk, as usual.

MCGURK: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Appreciate it -- Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf.

Coming up here in THE SITUATION ROOM: how a brand-new ruling from a federal judge could make it more difficult for the Trump administration to carry out some deportation flights.

And take a look. These are live pictures from Chicago, where memorial services are now under way for the late Reverend Jesse Jackson. It is the start of a weeklong effort to honor the politician and cultural titan.

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[11:29:45]

BROWN: Happening now: another legal blow to the Trump administration's hard-line immigration enforcement strategy. A federal judge has ruled against the Trump policy of deporting migrants to so- called third countries, or countries where these individuals have no ties.

CNN correspondent Priscilla Alvarez joins us.

Walk us through this ruling, Priscilla.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a significant ruling because it strikes at one of the key strategies that the Trump administration has tried to employ when dealing with nationals of countries that the U.S. has frosty relations with, which means that deporting those individuals is much, much harder.