'No!' GOP lawmaker clams up on CNN as Epstein scandal makes comeback

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), a strong ally of President Donald Trump's and a member of the House Oversight Committee, clammed up Tuesday when pressed about the Jeffrey Epstein files, refusing to divulge any information in the “spirit of trying to work together,” while also condemning a bi-partisan effort to compel the release of additional files.

The House Oversight Committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday with victims of Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on human-trafficking charges and is alleged to have run a blackmail operation targeting powerful figures.

While the Justice Department has already released some files related to Epstein to the House Oversight Committee, Sessions said, speaking on CNN Tuesday, that the body hopes to learn the “full context” of Epstein’s crimes and any co-conspirators through meeting with some of Epstein’s victims.

CNN’s John Berman pressed Sessions on the information he and his committee colleagues had already received from the DOJ on Epstein, asking the lawmaker if he could share “just one new thing that you’ve learned.”

“No,” Sessions answered bluntly, and after visibly gulping. “No, because the committee understands that we have an obligation – Republicans and Democrats – to hold this information until we're able to work together. It does no one any good to try and spout out what they've learned. So, in the spirit of trying to work together, I think it's the right thing to do.”

Berman also asked Sessions how he felt about other efforts to compel the release of more files on Epstein, specifically, the bi-partisan discharge petition introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), a legislative tool that, with enough signatures, would force a vote on the measure and compel the DOJ to release all files on Epstein held by the agency.

Sessions initially ignored the question, instead repeating his previous comments on what he and his committee colleagues hoped to learn from meeting with Epstein victims, along with comments on how the committee was working in a bi-partisan fashion.

Berman then asked Sessions whether he’d vote for the discharge petition, to which he affirmatively said he wouldn’t, on the basis that it was antithetical to bi-partisanship.

“The discharge petition is essentially when we're not working together, not when we are working together, and the need for getting the data and the information, all of it, is still, uh, apparent to all of us,” Sessions said. “At least [House Oversight Committee Chair Rep.] James Comer recognizes that, and so we're going to work through with what we've got, and work together on a bipartisan effort. So no need to go for a discharge petition.”

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