Stephen Fowler

not really anything new.

It's important to go back in time and remember that there have been several other earlier releases of these Epstein files from the Justice Department and information turned over to the House Oversight Committee from Epstein's estate through a subpoena.

In those emails and photos and text messages and things, there were some pictures from a time Bill Clinton went on a trip with Epstein in Asia and

And there's pictures of Bill Clinton with Epstein.

There's pictures of him hanging out and lounging and things.

And from there, it was one of the first things to come out from that big batch of correspondence that Republicans highlighted.

It has blossomed into this demand that the House Oversight Committee's investigation into Epstein should have Bill Clinton come and testify and Hillary Clinton, too.

Current President Donald Trump will become former President Donald Trump again.

And reading between the lines here, plenty of Democrats in Congress are perfectly OK with it either being come testify or we'll hold you in contempt and applying that down the road to Trump or his family or his cabinet or you name it.

You know, we're very deferential in this country to power.

It's a question that I don't think is going to be answered, and I don't think can be answered satisfactorily, given the way everything is played out.

Earlier this week on All Things Considered, Scott Detrow interviewed Annie Farmer, who was one of the women who accused Epstein, and this is what she had to say about finding her name and seeing other names in the files.

The point of this is that there are hundreds of women, many of whom were minors, that said that a powerful man and powerful men did unspeakable things to them.

And that has been filtered through the lens of, does this hurt or help the president?

Does this hurt or help Democrats and Republicans in the midterms?

And so for these people, this is a completely different reality than...

what often gets discussed in Washington.

And I think it's a reason why you had a near unanimous passage of Congress, because you had some of these women come and speak to Congress and say, this is not a Democrat thing.

It's not a Republican thing.

This is my personal story.