Vivian Salama: Let's talk about the way that a lot of this kind of came back to light last year, I mean, way back last summer, if you all can remember, when Elon Musk on his way out was ruffling feathers with the administration, he posted on X a post that alleged that President Trump was mentioned in the files, and that's the real reason they have not made them public.

Of course, that really set off a firestorm.

And so, you know, is Congress sort of thinking about this, Stephen, you know, with regard to Musk's post seeing that there were credible claims to this?

Is that what really made them have to, I mean, hold their head to the fire basically and say like, we have to do something about this?

Stephen Hayes: I mean.

Look, Elon Musk tweets a lot of stuff.

He tweets a lot of stuff that's not true.

I think he was right about that and I think it did lead to sort of more awareness about this.

And it got Democrats, I think, in particular, to perk up their ears.

But, you know, this is this moment, if you go back to July of last summer, the Department of Justice said that they were done releasing these files.

They were sort of, we're moving on, and they weren't.

And everybody knew that there was more there.

Pam Bondi had made promises to release the names.

The Trump administration, whatever we would find out, whatever the ground truth is, it's very clear that they haven't been straightforward, they haven't been transparent, they haven't been honest.

I think that's one of the reasons that Democrats now say whatever the truth is, whatever we find out, we can make an issue of the fact that they haven't been straight with us.

And there are all sorts of -- you know, if you go back, you know, if you go back as long as Sarah's been covering this, there are all sorts of questions that are raised by things that Trump administration officials, things that the president himself, remember, he gave an interview in 2019 when he was asked shortly after Ghislaine Maxwell was arrested, he gave an interview, asked about the arrest, and he said, well, I wish her well.

And then he was asked about that again a week later, and he doubled down on that, said, I wish her well.

And you just think she was just arrested for sex trafficking.

Vivian Salama: Right.

Stephen Hayes: And you're saying you wish her well?

Like what's the story behind that?

Vivian Salama: Well, what is -- I mean, Andrew, what do we know from previous mentions of President Trump?

And then Sarah, I'm going to come to you for what we know that we haven't seen from the DOJ yet.

Andrew Desiderio: Well, we could learn a lot more after Trump is done being president now because the precedent has been set.

We talk about precedents all the time on Capitol Hill.

The precedent has now been set that a former president can be compelled to testify before a Congressional committee, right?

Bill Clinton did that today.

When Democrats are back in the majority one day, which they will be at some point, they will be able to do the same thing to Donald Trump when he is out of office, and those answers could potentially come out when he is under oath.

Now, he'll fight it legally as much as he possibly can.

But remember with the Clintons, this came to the point of them being potentially held in contempt of Congress, which means a referral to the U.S.

attorney for the District of Columbia.

I mean, so it's a very serious legal issue, right?

And so the precedent has been set.

I would not be shocked at all if Donald Trump is forced to testify at some point in time, not while he's president, right, but after he's done being president in front of Congress under oath and then subject to those same sort of, you know, legal requirements like perjury.

Vivian Salama: Assuming that he shows up, of course.

And, Sarah, there's been reporting by you and others that DOJ may have withheld files related to President Trump's alleged conduct with minors in particular, allegations that the White House denies.

What can you tell us about that?

Sarah Fitzpatrick: So, what we know, from a couple different avenues, I reported for the first time today that nine people familiar with material that has been provided to the FBI and to the DOJ in recent years.

That specific material is not among the files that has been released.

And so we know that it's a much broader potential amount of material that has been withheld.

And specifically some of those documents included Trump's name and allegations of misconduct.

So, it is a much broader thing than one or two documents that just by chance may have been mishandled or misplaced.

The New York Times and other independent journalists, NPR has done some reporting about a specific allegation against Donald Trump that involves a minor that was featured.

Actually, it's the first mention on a presentation that the Justice Department, Trump's own Justice Department, put together last summer about notable people in the file that had allegations.

So, what we know from that -- and those files are missing, Vivian Salama: Right.

Sarah Fitzpatrick: So, what we know about that is that's not some offhand -- there's all sorts of tips that go into the FBI, but this is something that had clearly been elevated to a high enough level that even a year ago the Justice Department is identifying it as important.

And the reason why all of this is important is because this wasn't a subpoena.

This was a law that was passed.

And most importantly, it's a law that will continue on even after Trump is out of office.

So, there could be real ramifications, legal ramifications for withholding this information.

I mean, that could be tampering with evidence.

I think it's a major, major development and I think it's something -- that's where this story is going.

Vivian Salama: And briefly, even if even if those allegations remain unproven, isn't that -- I mean, wouldn't that, you know, spark a firestorm within the -- among the base, or do they want to see proof and even then it's kind of questionable?

Sarah Fitzpatrick: To be honest, I don't really fully understand what the strategy is here, but I will say a big problem among Republicans on Capitol Hill is that they -- you know, there's what's been said publicly by the president, but there's also what's been said privately.

He has called lawmakers to the White House.

He put lawmakers in the Situation Room to try and lobby them to vote against this.

And so there have been personal assurances, things that have been said to Republicans that have proven not to be true, and that is putting his -- the very people that are keeping him politically going are now behind closed doors.

Really wavering on that support, and that's a really explosive development.

Vivian Salama: Tarini, you mentioned Commerce Secretary Lutnick, and I want to revisit that.

The commerce secretary, who's also President Trump's longtime friend, has come out with several public comments quite contradictory.

Let's take a listen.

Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary: Massage table in the middle of your house?

How often you have a massage?

And he says, every day.

And then he like gets like weirdly close to me.

And he says, and the right kind of massage.

Now my wife is standing here.

My wife and I decided that I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.

So, I was never in the room with him socially, for business or for even philanthropy.

If that guy was there, I wasn't going because he's gross.

I did have lunch with him as I was on a boat going across on a family vacation.

My wife was with me as were my four children and nannies.

I had another couple with -- they were there as well with their children.

And we had lunch on the island.

That is true, for an hour, and we left with all of my children, with my nannies and my wife all together.

We were on family vacation.

We were not apart to suggest there was anything untoward about that in 2012.

I don't recall why we did it.

Vivian Salama: Tarini, this is arguably one of the most radioactive topics for the Trump administration.

How is the White House receiving these comments?

Tarini Parti: Yes, that was definitely a real flip-flop there.

And the president himself, my colleagues have reported, had a conversation with Lutnick about this and questioned him on this back and forth and has expressed how frustrated he is with the commerce secretary.

Again, he wants the story to go away, and having his own cabinet official go back and forth like this is not a good look for the administration, Stephen Hayes: But the president himself has said that he had never flown on Epstein's plane.

He's in the flight logs.

I mean, everybody involved in this has offered those kinds of -- I mean they're flip-flops is generous.

They're just lies.

Like what he did was lie there.

And he was sending emails to Epstein as late as 2018, maybe later than that.

But what's striking about this, and, look, I mean, I've been around here, been in Washington for a long time.

I'm not new to politicians exaggerating or lying, but it's sort of breathtaking.

The way in which they're willing to say things that are just fundamentally demonstrably, provably untrue again and again and again, and it's this sort of moment of desperation from the White House.

Vivian Salama: And Republicans are taking notice.

Andrew Desiderio: Exactly.

And one of the things I wanted to add too is that this is not the first time it's been a scandal in a Trump administration.

In the first Trump administration, Alex Acosta was forced out of his cabinet position after details were revealed about the sweetheart plea deal that he gave to Jeffrey Epstein when he was U.S.

attorney down in Florida at the time.

And, you know, to your point about, of course, Republicans more and more are willing to entertain the idea of bringing Howard Lutnick under oath, for example.

Congresswoman Nancy Mace, for example, who is running for governor in South Carolina, would definitely benefit from an endorsement from Donald Trump, is still sticking her neck out on this issue and saying things that she knows will rattle the president in his inner circle.

Vivian Salama: Unfortunately we're running out of time, but, of course, we want to stress that in all of this, that we have to remember the survivors most importantly out of this whole entire crisis.

So, we're going to have to leave it there.

Thank you so much to our guests for joining me, and thank you at home for watching.