On Tuesday night, The Last Word was back at it with wild speculations and conspiracy theories. Host Lawrence O’Donnell and guest Zerlina Maxwell, host of Signal Boost, speculated about the sex crimes case against Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, this time in relation to Attorney General William Barr. As the discussion that followed demonstrated, the liberal media have been trying their hardest to find any possible connection between Epstein and the Trump administration.
O’Donnell began: “What is William Barr up to? What is he afraid of? That is the question tonight in the Jeffrey Epstein case." The left-wing host desperately tried to establish a scandalous connection between Barr’s father and Epstein: “William Barr's father hired Jeffrey Epstein to teach high school boys and high school girls even though Jeffrey Epstein is not even a college graduate.”
Again, these were not Attorney General Barr’s actions, but his father's from decades ago, that O'Donnell seized on as evidence of a supposed controversy.
The Last Word host continued speculating: “Should the Attorney General of the United States be supervising a prosecution of a criminal defendant who was hired by and worked for the Attorney General's father?” He went on hyping: “The Attorney General first recused himself yesterday then unrecused himself today and is not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth about his multiple recusal decisions.” Obviously Barr’s actions are evidence that he is hiding something, good thing O’Donnell has been monitoring the issue.
The host opened the discussion up to Maxwell, stating: “Bill Barr knows; he knows tonight that his father hired Jeffrey Epstein. He may have known it at the time that his father hired Jeffrey Epstein.” Interestingly, at the time, Epstein’s scandals were unknown, and likely hadn’t yet occurred, though O’Donnell seemed to think otherwise.
Maxwell responded: “People get jobs all the time. It's the fact that he's a predator and you're placing him with potential victims and nobody's stepping in to say, wait, hold up, this person, we need to do more research on this person and do a background check.” Because of course, we should assume everyone is a sex offender before hiring them.
Thankfully the Me-Too movement is here to hold everyone, guilty or innocent, in contempt: “I think that we've learned a lot in the Me Too era about enablers. We've learned a lot about the fact that people are not predatory in isolation, that there are people around that individual that are allowing it to continue, whether it be assistants to Jeffrey Epstein who are -- or young women who are going out to recruit additional victims.”
Maxwell ended with an unfounded accusation: “There is a circle of people that are -- that all need to be held accountable and not just Jeffrey Epstein, and I think Bill Barr's father is in that group and I think Donald Trump and his associates are in that group. So I'm sure Donald Trump may be nervous today, but I'm sure the people that hang out with Donald Trump are also nervous today.”
This group of course does not include many of Epstein’s Democratic friends, including former President Bill Clinton, apparently the left gets a free pass.
Here is the transcript from the July 9 episode of The Last Word:
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
07/09/19
10:23 p.m. Eastern
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: What is William Barr up to? What is he afraid of? That is the question tonight in the Jeffrey Epstein case. And as we reported at this hour last night, the Attorney General has an even stronger reason to recuse himself than the one he mentioned yesterday. Attorney General Barr's father hired Jeffrey Epstein to be a math teacher at the Dalton school on the upper east side of Manhattan when the Attorney General's father was the headmaster of that elite and very expensive private school. William Barr's father hired Jeffrey Epstein to teach high school boys and high school girls even though Jeffrey Epstein is not even a college graduate. That is now and was then unthinkable in a school like Dalton. A year later, William Barr's father abruptly resigned from the Dalton school after the board of trustees decided to investigate the way William Barr's father was running that school. And not long after that, Jeffrey Epstein left the school and started his new life on Wall Street. Should the Attorney General of the United States be supervising a prosecution of a criminal defendant who was hired by and worked for the Attorney General's father? The attorney general first recused himself yesterday then unrecused himself today and is not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth about his multiple recusal decisions. As we so often say in the world of Donald Trump, we have never seen anything like this. No attorney general of the United States has ever made a series of recusal decisions like this.
(....)
10:27 p.m. Eastern
O’DONNELL: So, Zerlina, Bill Barr's father --
ZERLINA MAXWELL [“SIGNAL BOOST” CO-HOST]: Yes.
O’DONNELL: -- His father hired Jeffrey Epstein, who he knew was not a college graduate. Jeffrey Epstein took a couple of college courses in physics. And he hired him at one of the most expensive private schools in Manhattan to teach math, knowing he wasn't a college graduate. Bill Barr knows, he knows tonight that his father hired Jeffrey Epstein. He may have known it at the time that his father hired Jeffrey Epstein.
MAXWELL: Right.
O’DONNELL: He may have known Jeffrey Epstein at that time. We don't know.
MAXWELL: We don't know.
O’DONNELL: But he does -- he's not recusing himself because of that.
MAXWELL: Well, the thing that's so weird to me is not in isolation that he hired him without, you know, the requisite experience, it's that, you know, sexual predation of this type, it's not something that starts when you're 35 or 45, right? If, you know, that's consistent and holds here and obviously the prosecution yesterday made an eloquent presentation sort of explaining some of this. He probably had some of these behaviors that folks were aware of at the time. The fact you're hiring someone with no experience and who has this type of predation towards teenage girls, at least that we know of, we don’t know about the boys, but we at least know he has this predation towards teenage girls and is trafficking girls, according to the paperwork filed yesterday. That's what bothers me. It's not hiring an inexperienced person. Maybe he just had great relationships. People get jobs all the time. It's the fact that he's a predator and you're placing him with potential victims and nobody's stepping in to say, wait, hold up, this person, we need to do more research on this person and do a background check. And then you see this person for decades. I think that we've learned a lot in the Me Too era about enablers. We've learned a lot about the fact that people are not predatory in isolation, that there are people around that individual that are allowing it to continue, whether it be assistants to Jeffrey Epstein who are -- or young women who are going out to recruit additional victims. There is a circle of people that are -- that all need to be held accountable and not just Jeffrey Epstein, and I think Bill Barr's father is in that group and I think Donald Trump and his associates are in that group. So I'm sure Donald Trump may be nervous today, but I'm sure the people that hang out with Donald Trump are also nervous today.
