'Why not?' GOP's Nancy Mace pressed on Melania Trump's testimony in Epstein case

CNN's John Berman pressed Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) to explain why Hillary Clinton's testimony about Jeffrey Epstein was necessary but Melania Trump's was not.

The former first lady told lawmakers Thursday that she could not recall ever meeting the late sex offender, but the current first lady appears in many photos with Epstein and his now-imprisoned co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, both of whom were friends at one time with President Donald Trump.

"You did three rounds with Secretary Clinton yesterday, said you asked a number of questions about former President Bill Clinton, including whether the former first lady had any feelings about young women massaging her husband," Berman said. "Why did you ask that? Why was that important?"

Mace cautioned that she could not speak freely because a transcript from the deposition was not yet publicly available, but she defended her line of questioning as fair.

"Statements have been made, I believe, publicly about President Trump and why he should be called in," Mace said, "and I think it's fair to ask questions about the standard of the types of people, who they are and why they should be called in for the Oversight Committee, and I was making a comparison based on certain statements made yesterday, and making that clear that, you know, everybody should be treated equally and in the same standard apply to her husband. That was the line of questioning I was going for."

Berman then asked whether Melania Trump should be held to that same standard and asked her husband's name appearing thousands of times in the Epstein files, but Mace disagreed.

"I don't believe so, and I don't believe that President Trump should be called before the Oversight Committee," the congresswoman said. "He has answered questions, and the victims that I've spoken to actually exonerated President Trump, and so the victims I've spoken to and their family members have not exonerated people like former President Bill Clinton, who has denied being on the island, but I will bring out some documents today that show that Jeffrey Epstein was directing victims and or witnesses to deny he ever was at the island, and I think this is going to be there are going to be a lot of people that need to come before the Oversight Committee today this morning."

Mace has called for Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to testify before the committee about his relationship with Epstein, but she insisted that the president and first lady did not need to be questioned under oath.

"I want to take everything seriously, and I'm not looking at this through a partisan lens, and when you see me come out with a list of people that need to be interviewed by Oversight, you're going to see Republicans and Democrats alike," Mace said. "You're even going to see women who I believe are selling other women to Jeffrey Epstein."

That opened the door for Berman to ask a follow-up question about the first lady.

"Yeah, again, and that's why I just go back to the first line of questioning I had there, because Hillary Clinton said that she has never met, doesn't remember ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein – Melania Trump did," he said. "I mean, we have pictures of Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein. If you're going to question former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about someone she's never met, at least if you're throwing a wide net, why not question Melania Trump?"

Mace did not address his question directly but instead deflected blame back to the Clintons.

"Well, are you going to throw a picture up on the screen of Hillary Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein?" she said. "I believe there are photos out there of her and Jay-Z and Jeffrey Epstein and a photo, there are photos of president, former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at a wedding. There are, I believe, more pictures of the Clintons with Epstein and Maxwell than there are of Trump."

"But again, you know, Epstein, again, Epstein was involved with people who are very powerful and very rich, and how did he have that kind of access, and I think it's not just the sex trafficking, it's the access to power, the access of power," Mace added. "It is, was he an asset? Was he getting information, trading information? What country was paying him? I think there are multiple countries. He could have been in multiple or dual agent, and how did he have all this access? I think that's important, equally important to the sex trafficking and prostitution was happening."

Berman agreed, but asked why she wasn't interested in hearing from the first lady.

"You have thrown a wide net on the people you want to talk to," he said. "It's just I'm just curious about why the line stops at first lady Melania Trump. If there are, you know, if there is a clear relationship that she had there or knowledge of something potentially."

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