Criminal Defense Attorney Stacy Schneider told CNN host Erin Burnett that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) may have jeopardized its investigation into former President Bill Clinton by releasing photos of him in the latest dump of Jeffrey Epstein documents.
After an act of Congress, the Trump administration finally released another trove of documents related to convicted sex-trafficker and child predator Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s DOJ appears to have scrubbed the president’s name from the documents, despite Trump being Epstein’s good friend for decades, and his name cropping up in files previously released by congressional Democrats.
Former President Bill Clinton, however, is a substantial presence in the files released on Friday.
“It's so significant that President Trump directed [U.S. Attorney General] Pam Bondi to investigate Bill Clinton — directly named him in a social media post — along with other Democrats. And then she answered the call and appointed a U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York to investigate,” Schneider said. “And the policy of the Justice Department is, you don't release anything related to an ongoing investigation. Especially photographs about the subject of an ongoing investigation.”
“And obviously, it seems to be in disingenuous subject being Bill Clinton … investigated at this late stage of the game,” Schneider added. “It certainly did seem targeted at the time and still does. But why would they go against their own policies and then release Bill Clinton's photos? It kind of makes a farce of this entire situation.”
“If you were going to hide behind an ongoing investigation — the one that you've got going is into Bill Clinton — and yet we got a whole bunch of pictures of him in a pool and a jacuzzi and whatnot.
Just Security co-editor Ryan Goodman added that the legislation Congress passed to force the Trump administration to release the files has an exception outlining that the administration “does not have to release information if it could jeopardize an ongoing investigation.”
“So it's not just that that's justice department policy,” Goodman said. “The law allows for them to actually [protect their investigation. So, it's the oddity that that would be the piece that's released, and especially when the victims have named at least 20 men, and then we've only got one out of 20.”
“And it happens to be that one,” Burnett said.
Watch the segment below:
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