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Top DOJ Official To Meet With Ghislaine Maxwell; House Subcommittee Holds Surprise Vote To Subpoena DOJ For Epstein Files; Columbia Announces Deal To Pay Trump Administration More Than $220 Million; Authorities Release New Documents In University Of Idaho Murders. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 24, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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LAURA BELANGER, SENIOR SERVICE HYDROLOGISTS, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ATLANTA: But that math changes over time as you see flooding occur more frequently.

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BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Once in a century, storms could become once in a decade storms, experts tell us. And John, this lovely town here is just one of five samples we found across the country with the help of First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that maps flood risk. We look for that combination of flashy topography, a lot of tourists who may not know the risks around them.

And from Santa Barbara, California, to the Catskills, we have some really poignant examples that knowledge is power. And even for communities that can't afford infrastructure. There's a camera over here so people could watch this online. The USGS has water watch tools. Knowledge could be life and death, John, as the country sets records this summer for the most flash flood warnings ever issued.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, knowledge can be life and death. You know, I think people asking questions now that they never have before they end up going somewhere. Bill, we're great to see you. Terrific report. Thank you very much.

Brand new hour of CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Today, the deputy attorney general of the United States is headed to Florida to meet with Jeffrey Epstein's close associate and confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, the highest, highly unusual trip for such a top level justice official.

After the new reporting, President Trump was told and informed back in May that his name appears in the Epstein files multiple times.

Columbia University reached a settlement overnight with the Trump administration. What this means for Columbia now to turn the page on this controversial chapter and what precedent this deal now may set for the other schools that the president is targeting.

And a fitness myth busted. Why scientists now say that you may be able to lower your daily step goals. I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara is off today. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: And we do have brand new reporting just into CNN. We're standing by for what really is an unprecedented meeting. Sources tell CNN that the deputy attorney General of the United States, Todd Blanche, will meet today with longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell. And we just learned they're meeting at the U.S. attorney's office in Tallahassee so she'll get to travel from prison for that meeting.

Maxwell was convicted of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse minors. Now we learned overnight that President Trump was told that his name is in the Jeffrey Epstein files. The president was asked directly if he had been told that just last week and his response was no, no, he was told back in May.

In May, the Deputy Attorney General Blanche and Attorney General Pam Bondi briefed the president on the findings of the Justice Department's review of the documents related to Epstein, which found that the files appeared to include several unsubstantiated claims that they determined not to be credible, including those relating to Trump. Now being named in files does not imply any wrongdoing necessarily.

Overnight, a House subcommittee voted in bipartisan fashion to subpoena from the Justice Department for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files in full. And this all happened despite the fact that Speaker Mike Johnson basically shut down the House a day early to avoid any floor votes on Epstein related matters.

Let's get right to CNN's Evan Perez for the latest reporting on this truly extraordinary meeting between the deputy attorney general and a convicted felon serving time, which we now learn will be off site.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, John, we know that this meeting is now going to happen at the U.S. attorney's office. That's at the federal building there in Tallahassee. And we just a few minutes ago saw Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney entering that complex, which indicates that she's probably already there and that meeting is going to be happening sometime soon this morning.

So the question, though is what does she have to offer? What does she have to say? And what does Todd Blanche, what is he bringing to this meeting? Is he going to be able to offer anything that gets her to say what she has to say?

Now, she has a pending appeal. She has maintained her innocence. She's serving a 20-year sentence. And we know she wants to get out of prison as soon as possible. So we'll see what comes of this meeting.

And of course, you know, as you pointed out, this all comes after the president, we learned, was told back in May by Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi briefing him that his name was in these files. Now, we've known that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein associated with

each other. They were friends over the years. And so the idea that his name appeared on these files along with dozens of other people who were associated with Jeffrey Epstein is not a surprise at this point.

[09:05:03]

But it goes to show what the administration is dealing with as they're trying to quell this uproar over the Epstein matter and really trying to push for more documents to be pushed to be released. We know one judge in Florida yesterday ruled that they are not going to release grand jury documents from the earlier investigation back in 2007 in Florida.

There are still requests for judges in New York to release documents from the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases. That's from later. That's more recent 2019 era. And so now we wait to see what comes up this meeting down in Tallahassee and whether we will hear more from Maxwell and whether we will find out what she has to say. John?

BERMAN: Yes, needlessly we're standing by for that. This meeting could begin very, very shortly based on the presence of Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyer there. Evan Perez, please keep us posted as to what you hear. Thank you. Kate.

BOLDUAN: So the House speaker had said that the White House needs time to deal with the Epstein issue and so there would be no votes in Congress on this until September. Despite that, Democratic and Republican lawmakers went ahead and voted anyway. The House subcommittee now moving forward to subpoena the Justice Department for all of its records in the Epstein case file. That would go far beyond just the files previously requested for the from the grand jury proceedings.

This move comes after the House Oversight Committee already this week moved to subpoena Epstein's long associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The aforementioned Ghislaine Maxwell for deposition. CNN's Lauren Fox is on the Hill tracking all of this for us and it is a lot what's going on here.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, all week long Democrats were trying to put Republicans in a position to have to have these votes on releasing the Epstein files. And first this started in the House Rules Committee. Then there were other committees in which Democrats were trying to push forward with these votes.

What finally unfolded yesterday is just a few hours after the House finished its final votes of summer session. You had this House Oversight subcommittee that voted with three Republicans joining Democrats on that committee to release the full Epstein files with victims' names and information redacted.

And in fact, they worked really closely with their Democratic colleagues in order to craft something that they could support. I do want to give you a sense of what else was in this subpoena. It includes communication between the Biden administration and DOJ as well as calls for depositions from the Clintons and James Comey, but it's a really fascinating tension point because just earlier in the day, Speaker Johnson was making clear that his message to his conference all along has been that the Trump administration just needed to have more time, that they were pursuing this grand jury material.

But obviously that request from Florida was denied to release some of that grand jury material. I don't know if that had some factor yesterday in, you know, convincing some of these Republicans on the subcommittee to vote for this.

But it is really this astounding moment, in part because now this means it's not going away. This is an addition to the subpoena that was issued by the Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, to solicit a deposition from Ghislaine Maxwell.

Here's what the speaker said about whether or not he stands behind his committee chairman. He said he does, but he has some concerns about Maxwell's testimony.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: I will note the obvious concern, the caveat that Chairman Comer and I and everyone has, that could she be counted on to tell the truth? Is she a credible witness? I mean, this is a person who's been sentenced to many, many years in prison for terrible, unspeakable, conspiratorial acts and acts against innocent young people.

I mean, can we trust what she's going to say? Even if she raises her hand and says that she'll testify under oath, is that something that can be trusted? You know, that's a reasonable question. Is that credible evidence? I don't know, but we'll have to see.

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FOX: Republicans won't return to Capitol Hill from the House until after that August recess. But given the fact that these subpoenas now are going to require time to process, it's very likely that when they return, this issue is going to come rearing back for House Republicans. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Lauren, thank you so much for being there for us. John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is journalist and author of the Red Letter on Substack, Tara Palmeri and former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland. Tara, I just want to start with you because you've written, I think, eloquently on this.

Just remind people, as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States is in Florida to meet with a convicted felon who is being removed from prison for a moment for this meeting. Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? What information might she have?

[09:10:00] TARA PALMERI, HOST, "THE TARA PALMERI" PODCAST: Well, Ghislaine Maxwell was the top of the pyramid in terms of the grooming operation that they that Jeffrey Epstein needed to abuse as many as a thousand girls. He was incapable of carrying out this massive sex trafficking operation without her.

And many of the victims that I spoke to recall being assaulted by Ghislaine Maxwell herself. She is a pedophile herself. Virginia Roberts Giuffre. When Ghislaine Maxwell found her on the property at Mar-a-Lago and talked to her, made her feel special with her posh British accent, seemed interested in her and Virginia said, I want to be a massage therapist.

Basically, Ghislaine did what she did to so many other girls. She said, I can make your dreams come true. Come with me to this 50-year- old man's house. A place where no child would go except that they were being led by someone like Ghislaine who had this charm and this veneer of acceptability. She was a woman after all. Children don't expect to be attacked by women.

She brought him there. And that's where Virginia says that she was not only molested and raped by Epstein, but by Ghislaine as well. And in their trial, Ghislaine perjured herself twice. And so I think a lot of people forget in this case that she is equally if not more liable for this kind of assault and this kind of abuse. And people say, oh, she's the victim, she's the only person who's been prosecuted. She's a woman. There's sexism there. But they don't understand that Ghislaine Maxwell was Bonnie and Clyde.

He needed her there and she's not a reliable witness and she's only going to -- she still says she's innocent. And hundreds and hundreds of women recall girls now, women recall meeting her were brought in by her. So I think it's something to remember today and it's upsetting to them. I talked to Annie Farmer who was molested by Ghislaine Maxwell as well at 16 years old. And she said when she heard that the Department of Justice, after she testified against Ghislaine Maxwell spent years of her life building that case that the prosecutors put forward in New York City.

I mean, when she heard that the DOJ was going to see hurt and not the survivors, not the victims, she said it was heart wrenching, it was upsetting. It made her stomach turn. And they're re victimizing these women by suggesting that Glenn has anything to say of value.

BERMAN: Again, that is important context, Jeremy, as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States who happens to be President Trump's former personal defense attorney goes to meet with her today. Talk to me about how unusual this meeting is.

What you think we'll learn from it? Because honestly, I think the questions that Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, asks are every bit as interesting potentially, as the answers that he gets from Maxwell.

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR: And that's a fair point, John. I think this is really a dog and pony show. This is potentially Donald Trump stamping Maxwell's ticket and Maxwell stamping Donald Trump's ticket. Maybe this person who really does lack credibility.

Granted, if you want to know how something was operated from a criminal perspective, you don't want someone on the outside. You want someone on the inside who was involved. So there is credibility on that general base level.

But who she is and her involvement and her unwillingness to accept responsibility and allegations of perjury and the victimization of so many women and girls, it is troubling that we're coming to this point. And you really wonder, again, why would she not have tried to help herself if she had something to share of value back at the time, meaning at the time of the trial or before the trial.

So, it is rare and unique. This is not something of great historical context. This is not what we discussed very briefly the other day, you know, Watergate, and we need to go back and dig in and get those files. But I will say again, this really is a dog and pony show because this is not about the grand jury. This is not about blaming a judge potentially for saying there's no exception to Rule 6 to release that secrecy.

This is go to the files themselves, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, dictate it and do it and get whatever answers you can find.

BERMAN: Just one more point on that, because we learned overnight that Donald Trump was told that his name is in the Jeffrey Epstein files. He was asked about that last week, said no, he was never told. He was told is the reporting now. You know, if you wanted to clear up, and again, having your name in there is not any indication of wrong.

SALAND: Not true. Not true.

BERMAN: But if he wanted to clear up how his name was in there, what could he do?

SALAND: He could do what I just said. Don't go to the grand jury, don't ask a judge. Go to the files. That's the answer. You're not getting it because he doesn't want to do it potentially. I don't know.

BERMAN: And again, Tara, you've done so much reporting on all of this. What do you expect that we will learn from Maxwell, if anything, today after this meeting?

PALMERI: I don't think there's anything that you could learn from Maxwell, that you couldn't learn from the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, from the victims who testified, who make up the files with their subpoenas, with their testimonies, with the work that they've done to help this case.

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Why would you go back to the woman who complete, who complains over. Sorry. Who claims over and over again that she is innocent? She's not going to give anything up. I mean, the best case scenario for this administration is if she says Donald Trump had nothing to do with this. I was innocent. He was innocent. We just so happen to live in Palm Beach and come across Jeffrey Epstein from time to time. I dated him at one time in my life.

But she's never going to actually go deep into what happened here. I mean, she's always maintained her innocence. So we would -- what did she get out of this? That's the question.

And like you said, I think it would be valuable if they released the transcript of their conversation so that the American people can know what they actually talked about in this private meeting. And if a deal was made, why would she talk unless she's getting something out of it? And I think, well, we probably will never know that.

BERMAN: It's a fair point. What will be asked? Tara Palmeri, Jeremy Saland. Thank you both so much, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Never before seen police documents revealing disturbing new details from the investigation into the murder of the four Idaho college students. We have new reporting on that and shocking failures exposed in the U.S. organ donation system. One man waking up on an operating table as they were preparing to remove his organs for donation. Now the government is demanding urgent changes.

Plus, they're not your average ball club friends and they are selling out stadiums. So what is behind this wild success of the Savannah Bananas?

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BOLDUAN: Columbia University is now the first school in the nation to reach a negotiated settlement with the Trump administration over claims of antisemitism as part of this agreement, and this was being negotiated for months. The university will pay more than $220 million over three years in penalties.

In exchange, the Trump administration will unlock the hundreds of millions of dollars, even possibly a billion dollars in scientific research funding that they had locked up to force Colombia to bend to demands.

With this settlement, Colombia is not required to admit wrongdoing. The school saying this, the institution's leaders have recognized repeatedly that Jewish students and faculty have experienced painful, unacceptable incidents and that reform was and is needed.

I sat down with the school's acting president, Claire Shipman, last hour for her first TV interview since this was announced. She says that the school is ready to turn the page on this chapter. And I asked her if she's concerned, though, about this setting a precedent for the other universities being targeted by President Trump.

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CLAIRE SHIPMAN, ACTING PRESIDENT, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: I am confident in the agreement we struck, we worked again on every word. So I am confident it does not cross our lines that were essential to us. Of course, I'm aware of the atmosphere in which we, you know, are and

were talking to the federal government and what other institutions are facing. It's a very complex moment for higher education. I respect every decision that every other institution is making and will make. I've had incredibly helpful, deep, thoughtful conversations with the leaders of other institutions.

And I really think we are all facing many of the same issues. And I understand there may be different choices made, but this was the responsible path for Columbia.

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BOLDUAN: All right. And much more to learn from this and what this means for all of those other schools as those negotiations and legal battles continue. John.

BERMAN: Such a great discussion. All right. Breaking overnight, new police documents reveal new details about the weeks before the murders of four college students in Idaho, One of the victims, Kaylee Goncalves, told her roommate she saw a strange man staring at her outside.

A different time, the roommates came home to find their door wide open, loose on its hinges. Nine days later, Kaylee Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen, they were found stabbed to death inside the home. In a victim impact statement, one of the roommates left alive addressed the killer in court.

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DYLAN MORTENSEN, SURVIVING ROOMMATE: He is a hollow vessel, something less than human. A body without empathy, without remorse. He chose destruction. He chose evil. He feels nothing. He tried to take everything from me. My friends, my safety, my identity, my future. He took their lives. But I will continue trying to be like them, to make them proud.

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BERMAN: CNN's Veronica Miracle is in Boise where this is all taking place. Veronica, on top of that dramatic testimony, the victim impact statements, we also got this trove of new information about this case that we really never knew before.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John. And as we go through those documents and learn more details, you can understand the reaction of that surviving roommate, what they discovered when those bodies were found. We understand that some of the bodies were so just brutalized that officers couldn't even recognize these individuals. The intense struggle was obvious.

And we also found in these documents that one of the individuals who -- one of the friends who came over to discover the bodies, to see exactly what had happened that next morning, when he entered one of the rooms, there was dried blood everywhere. And he was just confused at first. It took him a moment. He thought that maybe someone had made a mess. And then he started to piece together what happened and immediately told those surviving roommates to call 911.

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So as we get more details, it is just horrific and just gruesome. And some of these families knew these details before they went into the hearing yesterday. We heard from the Gonsalves family that the prosecution team, they had sat them down and went through all of the brutal details. Now that the gag order has been lifted, now that the case has been closed and you could see some of the grief and the rage that came through, including the sister of Kaylee Goncalves. You can hear her testimony. It is graphic and it is unedited. Take a listen.

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ALIVEA GONCALVES, KALYEE GONCALVES' SISTER: You want the truth? Here's the one you'll hate the most. If you hadn't attacked them in their sleep in the middle of the night like a pedophile, Kaylee would have kicked your fucking ass.

JUDGE STEVEN HIPPLER, IDAHO FOURTH DISTRICT COURT: Even if we could get truthful insight into his, why, I suspected would not in any way quench one's thirst for actually understanding. No conceivable reason could make any sense.

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MIRACLE: And you heard from the judge there, he also went after Kohberger, calling him a faceless coward. John.

BERMAN: And again, as this moves forward, one does hope that it's the victims and their families who will be remembered, not the person, not even the name of the person who carried out the heinous act. Veronica Miracle in Boise. Thank you very much. Kate.

BOLDUAN: We are standing by right now for the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to meet with Jeffrey Epstein's associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. What we know about this highly unusual face to face.

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