CNN’s Elie Honig Slams Bill Clinton’s ‘Unconvincing’ New Epstein Statement: ‘He Can’t Hide From What’s in Those Photos’
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig slammed former President Bill Clinton’s call to release the “complete” Jeffrey Epstein files, warning that the Democrat “can’t hide from what’s in those photos.”
Images of Clinton emerged over the weekend after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped an initial tranche of files that included a cache of photos featuring a range of public figures connected, directly or indirectly, to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The former president appears repeatedly in the images.
Several of the photos place Clinton at the center of Epstein’s social orbit. He is shown aboard an aircraft with his hand on Michael Jackson’s shoulder as Diana Ross looks on; standing alongside Mick Jagger and an unidentified woman whose face has been redacted; posing with actor Kevin Spacey; and in a swimming pool with Maxwell.
Another photograph shows Clinton on a plane with his arm around a woman wearing a white camisole, her face blacked out. One image depicts him in a hot tub next to a woman whose identity has similarly been obscured.
Following the release, Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña released a statement on behalf of the former president, saying that the Trump administration was shielding itself from what comes next by releasing “grainy 20-plus-year-old photos” of the Democrat.
Ureña followed with a further statement on Monday calling for the “complete” release of the files:
Speaking to CNN anchor Kasie Hunt on Monday night, Honig warned the former president’s statements were lacking and attacking the DOJ would not help him “hide” from questions around his association:
I‘m not about to vouch for DOJ’s competency at this point, but I did find the statement from the Clinton camp to be fairly unconvincing. I mean, okay, if they want to see other documents come out, fine, I want to see what those documents are going to say about the photographs we all saw of Bill Clinton, Ghislaine Maxwell and a woman whose identity is blacked out in a pool at night. I mean, what is Bill Clinton going to say about that?
We‘ve all seen the photograph of Bill Clinton in a hot tub with, again, a woman whose identity was blacked out and saying, well, DOJ is covering, in suggesting DOJ is covering for Trump. Maybe. Maybe not. We don‘t know that for sure, but I don‘t find that at all even beginning to address the many serious questions that have arisen around Bill Clinton. There’s no evidence, specifically, that he committed a crime but he can’t hide from what’s in those photos.
Hunt then asked about Epstein’s so-called sweetheart plea deal and how much “went on” in that earlier part of the Epstein saga “where there is potentially plausible deniability.” Honig replied:
See, this is exactly the problem with the way DOJ has given us these files: They’re completely out of context. Take those photos we were just talking about of Bill Clinton, we don’t know exactly where they were taken. Very importantly, we don’t know [when] they were taken. And the timing is so important here, Kasie, because to me, there’s a really key cutoff that happens in 2007-2008, that’s when Jeffrey Epstein is being prosecuted in Florida by the feds. He gets this ridiculously, inexcusably soft plea deal. But at that point, he does plead to a Florida state level charge of soliciting a minor for prostitution.
So people who are still cavorting with Jeffrey Epstein after that, after 2007-2008, I think have a very different set of questions to answer than people who cut him off before 2007-2008.
Watch above via CNN.
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