Lawmakers react to Barr testimony on Epstein

What did he say today? What did the committee learn? Nikole Killion joins me now for answers to that. Nikole, great to see you. So what did he say, if it's knowable? Or more knowable, probably is the various members' reaction to whatever he said. Yeah, absolutely. And as anything with Congress, as it pertains to Congress, I should say--

Opinions differ. Exactly, depending on party. So obviously, the chairman, James Comer, said that they did learn quite a bit today from the attorney general. Democrats, on the other hand, felt, hey, we didn't learn more than things that we've already read in the press, right? That being said, we did hear a little bit from Bill Barr himself. He didn't really take questions, but did say a couple of words, acknowledging that this was a good conversation, and also standing by this ruling that he and others made at the time of Jeffrey Epstein's death, that he does stand by the fact that he still believes that it was a suicide. Take a listen to what lawmakers thought of his deposition today.

I don't think we're learning much from the questioning from the House Republicans. It doesn't seem like this is something where they are truly caring about the victims and about trying to get to the bottom of what's happening. Whereas on the Democratic side, we are asking the tough questions and trying to get some answers. The Democrats' goal is to try to dig up some type of dirt on President Trump. And what Attorney General Barr testified in there was that he never had conversations with President Trump pertaining to a client list. He didn't know anything about a client list. So, again, as you heard the chairman there say, he feels the Democrats are politicizing this issue. Nonetheless, though, he did acknowledge that the attorney general, or former attorney general, answered all of the committee's questions. And keep in mind that Bill Barr is really the first of several witnesses that this panel is expected to call over the next couple of weeks, including a host of former attorney generals. We're going to hear from Alberto Gonzales. They have called Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, among others, also the former FBI director, James Comey, Robert Mueller, in addition to the Clintons. So all of these depositions, they're expecting to take place obviously behind closed doors over the next several weeks. And just before you came in, a few moments before you came in, Nikole, I saw an email from the Oversight Committee saying the Department of Justice is in the process of responding to a subpoena for underlying documents in its possession. Yeah, that's right. Because keep in mind, the panel had also issued a subpoena not only to some of those individuals that I just named, but also to the Department of Justice, as well, to, again, push on the department to publicly release the rest of the Epstein files. We know that the administration has started that process, but obviously, there has been a huge clamoring on Capitol Hill for these full files to be declassified. So tomorrow is actually the deadline for the Department of Justice to respond. The committee acknowledged they didn't expect the department to meet that deadline, which is why we're seeing that statement late today acknowledging, yes, the agency is cooperating, but we may not get everything we need by that deadline.

Nikole Killion, thank you very, very much.