I’ve been watching Hilary’s deposition, and at about halfway in, she directly accuses the attorney general and the justice department of either “gross incompetence” or an active coverup. It starts with a question from Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-CA) at 1:50:56 and Sec. Clinton’s answer, and lasts about eight minutes.

It is incredibly powerful, and if this is all anybody watches it’s well worth the time, IMO.

Direct link with timestamp: https://youtu.be/siiAk6WXc0M?t=6659

Transcript (lightly edited for clarity, emphases mine)

Question by Ranking Member Garcia: Madam Secretary, just lastly, I want to also thank you for your testimony and broadly speaking, you’ve probably been following just recently. This week we’ve seen and there’s been reports that numerous files are missing from the group of files released. For the record, only about approximately 50% of the total files have likely been released; the other percentage have been withheld for whatever reasons we’re not really sure of and don’t really understand. It’s also been reported by numerous outlets this week that the FBI has removed files that are supposed to be being made available to the Congress that include serious allegations of alleged abuse by President Trump, sexual abuse to a minor. Now these are allegations that we know have been corroborated in other ways, and the media have have reported on these, but these files themselves have been removed. Now this we view this is a very serious matter. I’ve personally looked for these files in the archive manifest that lists which files should be placed there. Those files are no are no longer there. and we have been calling on the DOJ and the Attorney General to release all of the files.

I’m wondering if, in your experience obviously in the US Senate or as Secretary of State, if you have any response to the behavior of the DOJ in their withholding of critical information and the apparent removal of files that could suggest serious crimes by folks in this administration.

Answer by Secretary Clinton: Congressman, I appreciate you’re raising this issue and I appreciated the statement that you put out when this became public knowledge, thanks to investigative reporting which revealed it. And I think that this behavior by the Justice Department deserves the most thorough investigation that the Congress could carry out.

As I understand the sequence of events, this committee subpoenaed the Justice Department, as well as the Epstein estate, as well as law enforcement officials from prior administrations, as well as my husband and me. The Justice Department refused to comply, which is what led to the passage by the Congress of the Transparency Act which then was signed into law.

And I think from the very beginning, the behavior of the Attorney General and her staff has demonstrated either a gross incompetence, which is bothersome because they are the keepers of information that should be evaluated for law enforcement purposes, or a clear cover up because they are protecting the president and others.

Either one of those should be the focus of this committee to try to get to the bottom.

If they are incompetent and they are incapable of complying with the law that the Congress passed, we need to know that because they are falling down on the job. They have an FBI director who’s more interested in drinking beer in a hockey dressing room after our team won the Olympics rather than being responsive and complying with the law as it has been promulgated.

So, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that, given the sequencing of the events – starting with the way that President Trump made the release of the files a key element of his 2024 campaign, the promise that he and then his attorney general made that the files would be released, then a walking back of that as they began began to look at the files, and [then] ignoring what they had promised, including that they had a client list on the desk of the attorney general – reasonable people would have to assume they are engaged in a massive coverup which is infuriating.

As an American, as a citizen, all of us should be, regardless of party, wondering what are they hiding.

And that’s why I said in my opening statement, the president of the United States is not above the law, and should be in a setting like this answering questions under oath, as should others who are prominently featured in the files. Especially the group that is featured after 2008, because prior to 2008 when Jeffrey Epstein plead guilty to the watered down charges that Alex Acosta negotiated (and then was rewarded for in the first Trump administration with a cabinet position) there are so many unanswered questions. I looked at the transcript of the Alex Acosta testimony that was taken before this committee and I don’t think that any Republican members asked him a question.

So you have to conclude that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, or clearly the Justice Department, starting in the White House and at the top with the Attorney General, and this latest example of the missing files about the allegations. And they are absolutely nothing more than allegations, but the FBI interviewed that witness four times. You don’t interview a non-credible witness four times. You don’t put into the FBI reporting “protect this source” if you think there is nothing to it.

So, of course, I would like to know, like every other American deserves to know, what is in those files and who is going to hold people accountable, because the Justice Department seems to be either unwilling or incapable of doing so.