[0:00]Joining me now is White House correspondent Von Hillyard, law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter, and senior national political reporter Sahil Kapoor. So Vaughn, let's start with this DOJ announcement. Uh they say they're
[0:11]going to meet with Gla Maxwell. Does this take any of the heat out of the Epstein fallout off the president and redirect it at the DOJ, especially as the president claims he doesn't really
[0:21]know anything about this decision? potentially if they seek to try to publish whatever Galain Maxwell tells Todd Blanch, the deputy attorney general
[0:31]here. But of course, this is somebody who we should be very clear was convicted of on sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison. And so the president suggesting that he
[0:42]there was disbelief or that he should say he didn't know that the attorney general and deputy attorney general were going to make this request of Galain Maxwell that at the same time he was
[0:54]asked about the fact that his one-time former defense attorney Todd Blanch who is now the number two at DOJ is the one who is going to be sitting down with
[1:03]Glain Maxwell when of course we are very well aware that Donald Trump's name has appeared across Epstein files, if you can call him that, that it was from the
[1:14]federal trial involving Gla Maxwell back in 2021, that we received the documents that showed that there were flight logs that indicated that the now president
[1:26]had flown on Epstein's plane at least seven different times. And so the president, he pushed aside the conflict of interest question from the Oval Office today that his own defense attorney who represented him gorgeous
[1:38]one year ago would be the one also uh interviewing likely behind closed doors, Galain Maxwell about uh potential relationships, business, friendships,
[1:48]whatever the relationships may be, and the extent to which they may or may not involve Donald Trump himself. It seems the White House really wants this to go away, but are any of their
[2:00]allies listening? I mean, you have this Blanch action which may or may not involve the White House, but what's happening on Capitol Hill seems to be independent of all this. Is the White House getting frustrated that they can't
[2:10]just make the story go away? >> Absolutely. The president himself, I think, is his best spokesperson. And in social media posts here just this afternoon, he said, "Why can people not focus on the most successful six months
[2:22]in the history of any presidency?" Those are the words of Donald Trump suggesting that instead people are obsessed with the Epstein files. He called this again today a hoax. It's not clear what part
[2:31]of this he has determined is a hoax and is it the extent to which those in Washington, people that he perceives as political enemies and people that are just trying to undercut his mission are
[2:43]trying to make something beyond what the Department of Justice has already revealed. But I think this is where the president himself, he could have opted, for example, after the Wall Street Journal published its article last week
[2:55]suggesting that the president had sent a birthday card with a depiction of a naked woman to Jeffrey Epstein years ago. Instead of just letting that story go, he decided to file a $10 billion
[3:07]lawsuit that could potentially take months and could even lead to a deposition. And so for in many ways, while the president indicates that he wants to move on from this, some of his
[3:17]top supporters, including those up on Capitol Hill, are adamant that they are not simply going to turn an eye to this. after for more than 5 years now having demanded that the public have a full
[3:29]reckoning of what exactly is in those files whether it leads to criminal charges or not having that raw evidence I don't think that we have seen such a demand out of the public and from
[3:40]members of Congress up on Capitol Hill for any other criminal investigation unlike compared to this one >> and we will get into the details in just a little bit about these Obama claims
[3:51]but just from a messaging standpoint Is this just too transparent of an attempt to change the subject? Is it actually going to work even among the MAGA base? Is this something they're thirsting for?
[4:02]Do they want to relitigate 2016? I think there's a great number of allies in at least MAGA media that are trying to make this uh make these new claims
[4:13]that new documents that were presented by director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard over the weekend that they are claiming should lead to the arrest of former President Obama and others.
[4:24]They are trying to make this something that is more compelling in the public interest than the Jeffrey Epstein files. And the president himself from the Oval Office today, Ryan, said, "Why are
[4:34]people focused on the Epstein hoax and not the documents that have been released as it pertains to the Obama administration in the aftermath of the 2016 election, but let's be very clear.
[4:45]I know you're going to get more into this here, but these files, there is no apparent crime that is being detailed from the release of any of these files.
[4:54]And for his part, President Obama uh in through a spokesman here just this afternoon very dismissive of these allegations. And frankly, six months into this administration, the Department
[5:05]of Justice has not even announced a formal investigation in any way. And John Durham was the one-time special counsel who investigated these very claims that President Trump and others are pushing forward. He was a special
[5:17]account counsel appointed by then attorney general Bill Bar. investigated this for three and a half years and ultimately uh that investigation led to only one guilty plea from a low-level FBI lawyer.
[5:28]>> Okay, Vaughn, thank you for that update. Let's move now to Tom Winter. Uh so Tom, does the Department of Justice think they're actually going to get anything from speaking to Maxwell and why would
[5:38]Maxwell in this case agree to even participate in something like this? >> Well, I can certainly see the the motivations, Ryan, for Galileain Maxwell to speak. She's currently serving a 20-year sentence, which would have her
[5:49]out of federal prison around the time that she's about 80 years old. So, there's certainly incentive for her if she could get a day shaved off of that. Certainly, she would want to. Um, the question is what she can she possibly
[6:00]give prosecutors that they don't already know. There was already two significant investigations into uh obviously Jeffrey Epstein, obviously into Gla Maxwell. Uh she did not ask for any sort of
[6:11]cooperation agreement uh leading up to trial saying that I did not commit any crime. Federal prosecutors did not offer her one either. They exhaustively looked into all the connections and all the individuals. You've already heard that
[6:23]there's a uh there's no sort of list or client list. The Justice Department has said that there's no evidence that we've ever uncovered in the course of our reporting and no witness has ever told us or no victim has ever told us that
[6:35]there was a broader kind of conspiracy here. We did hear an awful lot at the trial for which she was convicted of sex trafficking uh for Jeffrey Epstein uh from a number of witnesses that that
[6:46]directly spoke to Galain Maxwell's role in that and some as young as 14 years old at the time. So the evidence against her is quite clear. Surely she will bring up the nonprosecution agreement
[6:57]which she believes covers her. That's already been something that the courts have had a significant say on saying no that's not the case. You weren't a party to it. who didn't sign it and it was not applicable to the Southern District of New York. That's something that she's
[7:09]bringing before the Supreme Court. So presumably she'll bring that up with Todd Blanch. Outside of that, I'm unaware of anything in the reporting in the files. Whenever she talks about the Epstein files, I've got a couple of
[7:20]gigabytes on my computer between the civil litigation, between uh what's come out in courts, between the Palm Beach Police Department files. Uh we have an awful lot of information on this case
[7:30]and there's nothing that points to anything uh as far as further lines of inquiry uh that I would say Maxwell would have any sort of understanding of. She clearly had according to a jury that
[7:41]convicted her quite an understanding of Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and his activities. >> And then of course comes the president and then attorney general Pam Bond's request to have those grand jury
[7:51]transcripts released. The DOJ motion to unseal them. And the judge though is asking for more submissions before making a decision. What do we know about that? >> Yeah, so they made that motion in both
[8:02]the Maxwell and the Epstein cases and on those dockets before the judges that are presiding over them. Um, no surprise here, Ryan. The judges want a little bit more information from the Justice Department as to why they want these
[8:14]items uh unsealed. Uh what potential uh redactions might occur. They actually want them to file the the documents themselves with the proposed redactions uh onto the public docket. So the judges
[8:25]want to see that and then they're giving obviously Maxwell's side the opportunity to respond. You know there is some precedent for releasing grand jury transcripts. So generally we know what's in them because we have two indictments
[8:36]in this case. We know the types of information that was presented to the grand jury for them to vote on it. It is also possible legal experts point out that there were some individuals who maybe did not want to testify that were
[8:47]compelled to testify because they received a grand jury subpoena. So that could be potentially interesting information. But just based on what we know about the case publicly so far, obviously several asterisks in the
[8:59]course of my reporting with you here today, we don't expect any particularly uh new or uh revelatory information to come out of it. Certainly, there could be some additional details. Uh it's
[9:10]going to be at least until early August, if not mid August, before the judges rule on this, but they do want to rule on it soon, Ryan. And so that's at least a good heads up that we got from the court today. Uh this doesn't appear to
[9:21]be something that's going to be hanging around for too long. >> Okay, Tom Winter, thank you for that. Let's now go to Sahill on Capitol Hill. Uh Sahil, the Republican Tom Massie, somewhat of a thorn in the side of Speaker Johnson right now. He's one of
[9:33]the people behind the motion to the rules committee that was uh quashed. Now, we've heard some unusual frustration from the speaker with him. What are he and Massie saying?
[9:44]>> Yeah, Ryan, I think we'll start with the fact that these two have never really seen eye to eye. There's immense frustration on both ends. that's boiling over on two recent issues. The first is uh President Trump's big beautiful bill.
[9:55]Tom Massie was a resolute voice in opposition to that every step of the way uh because it adds trillions of dollars to the debt. On that one, he was kind of swimming against the tide because the White House and the MAGA movement
[10:05]generally wanted that bill to pass. That was uh the crux of President Trump's agenda. And the second issue is, of course, the Epstein files. And this is one where Tom Massie is actually swimming with the current because it's a
[10:16]rare issue where President Trump's own MAGA base disapproves of his own actions and actually supports Tom Massiey's effort to uh you know force the White House and the administration to be more transparent to release uh the files
[10:27]related to Jeffrey Epstein and uh that whole uh debacle and all of this has led to escalating uh primary threats uh by President Trump that Tom Massie is completely defiant about. He's insisting
[10:39]he's going to beat them. I spoke to him yesterday and we heard from Speaker Johnson uh earlier today. Let's play that. >> How are you feeling about the president trying to primary you?
[10:49]>> Well, they've spent 1.8 million against me so far in my congressional district. I think it's had very little effect, but um they're trying to beat up on me to
[11:01]keep everybody else in line here. And I think it's not working. >> I try to follow Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment. Never speak evil of another Republican. My gosh, it's hard to do sometimes around here. Let me just say about Thomas Massie. Could you just
[11:13]accept my southern bless his heart? Okay, I don't know what else to say about it. We're we're for maximum transparency. We're engaging in that right now and we don't need political games.
[11:23]>> And that's about as annoyed as I've ever seen Speaker Mike Johnson on anything, Ryan. >> Yeah, you and me both. Uh but what I did find interesting about that, I was in the room when Johnson was talking is that he says he's for transparency. He
[11:35]said maximum transparency a bunch of times, but he keeps avoiding these votes that are essentially about being transparent and releasing the files. I mean, how awkward of a spot are
[11:46]Republicans on Capitol Hill at the moment? Yeah, exactly. It's an awkward issue because House Republican leaders effectively have to run cover for Trump on an issue by preventing a bill to come to the floor, which a lot of Trump's
[11:56]base wants to pass. Democrats have fully embraced the cause of more transparency on the Epstein files because they see among other things a rare issue to drive a wedge between President Trump and his own base. They keep trying uh to find
[12:08]issues where that's possible and uh they finally seem to have settled on one where it is. But then, you know, Speaker Johnson saying they want maximum transparency. The response from Democrats is just allow the bill to the floor then let the let the votes happen.
[12:19]Let the votes you know let the chips fall where they may. Uh Johnson of course is saying the administration is already doing it that in his view the House doesn't need to act. >> Yeah. uh there seems to be different views of the word uh the definition of
[12:30]the word maximum in this case. We'll have to see how it all settles. Sahil Kapoor, thank you for that. And as we noted at the top of the broadcast, President Trump appears to be seeking to deflect attention from the Jeffrey
[12:41]Epstein story by continuing to pedal baseless claims about the 2016 and 2020 elections. >> This was treason. This was every word
[12:51]you can think of. They tried to steal the election. They tried to obfuscate the election. They did things that nobody's ever even imagined, even in other countries. We caught Hillary
[13:03]Clinton. We caught Barack Hussein, Obama. Uh they're the ones. And then you have many, many people under them. Susan Rice, they're all there. The names are
[13:13]all there. And I guess they figured they're going to put this in classified information and nobody will ever see it again. But it doesn't work that way. Justice NBC News justice reporter Ryan
[13:27]Riley joins me now uh to talk about this. There's a lot of bobbing and weaving here uh by the current administration as it relates to that. But let's do some factchecking here. Tulsi Gabbert and John Ratcliffe claimed
[13:37]that these declassified emails show that the Obama administration was manipulating intel to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election. Frankly, is there any truth to that?
[13:49]>> No. the what they are focusing on is this idea that there was a little the process might have been a little bit sped up and some intel analysts might have not had quite enough time as they wanted to do this uh full assessment but
[14:00]the broad pronunciations that they're they're making about it just uh aren't based on facts and I think that you know you have to look back to what they said before they made these big broad promises about what was going to be
[14:11]revealed in this investigation and now when it comes they're sort of having to make their rhetoric now match up to what they they previously stated um you know sort of >> confirming their priors I guess to a
[14:22]certain extent. We did see a statement a rare statement from former President Barack Obama come out today which says that nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to
[14:33]influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes. Those findings were affirmed in a 2020 report by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee which was le led
[14:44]by then chairman Marco Rubio um who of course is now a member of the Trump administration. So that entire investigation sort of undercuts uh the notion that they're trying to uh bring forward today. >> And he also is trying to push this
[14:56]narrative that President Obama himself was involved in some sort of conspiracy. Even if you were to take at face value the documents that they've revealed, is there any nexus directly to President Obama himself?
[15:06]>> Yeah. and he posted that video of Obama, you know, being arrested and no, that wasn't something that would have risen to this level. This was a, you know, really a thorough report. This and again
[15:16]that report by Marco Rubio u backed up this notion that what the the facts as they as they lied as related to Russia. But you know going back so many years at
[15:26]this time uh I think the administration is seems to be looking for some sort of uh distraction or some sort of uh to fulfill a lot of these promises that they made up. We've seen that at a number of level. We've seen that at the
[15:36]FBI and the Justice Department as well, sort of trying to make the outcomes reach match up to the rhetoric that they previously used. >> There's also kind of a unique uh kind of wrinkle to all of this in that even
[15:48]though there's no evidence that President Obama committed any crimes. President Trump accusing him of this wants to go after him, sharing videos of him being arrested. But the Supreme Court offered up a pretty broad definition of presidential immunity last
[16:00]year. Does that decision potentially shield President Obama from any sort of prosecution even if it's a trumped up prosecution? >> The other thing that people have to remember is that there's a five-year statute of limitations for federal
[16:11]crimes. Right? So that is a key factor here. So when you're talking about reaching back to things that happened in 2016, you would have to prove that there is some sort of ongoing conspiracy that would have been within the past 5 years.
[16:22]Right? So these are really really difficult um issues I think just to overcome. But I guess that Supreme Court decision also would give uh former President Obama immunity for anything
[16:33]any official acts that he took in office. So yes, that same protection that was granted uh to Donald Trump would then be granted to Barack Obama. It would only have to be statements or
[16:43]that were made outside of his capacity and everything that you're talking about in this realm was completely within the realm of his job. It was not outside of the realm of his job. >> Yeah. I think it's so important when we have these conversations to talk about
[16:54]the substance connected to it, but then talk about the potential consequences. It seems on every turn, President Trump is overstating this in a in a great way. Uh, and it just seems like that needs to be put into context. Ryan, thank you for
[17:06]doing that for us. We appreciate it. We thank you for watching and remember, stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.