'Incredible': Reporter astonished by 'amazing' admission by Epstein pal caught on tape

One of the first reporters to extensively interview the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse was amazed by an admission by one of the late sex offender's closest associates.

Les Wexner, the 88-year-old former Victoria's Secret chief executive, testified Wednesday at his Ohio home to Democrats from the House Oversight Committee, and The Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick reacted on "CNN This Morning" to a viral moment from that deposition that was caught on video.

"I want to play for you one thing," said host Audie Cornish, "because what we're seeing here in the U.S. is more conversation, more depositions. So for example, you have Victoria's Secret owner Les Wexner. He's been questioned for his relationship or ties to Epstein by the House Oversight Committee, specifically, okay, and video is starting to come out about the deposition, and I want to show you an example of a moment in the conversation he had just told lawmakers that the FBI had never spoken to him about Epstein, and as he's talking, he gets a note. So here's an example of that."

The video shows the elderly retail baron providing lawmakers with loquacious answers to their questions about his relationship Epstein, which he insisted was professional and finance-related only, when his attorney leaned over and whispered, "I'll f------ kill you if you answer another question with more than five words."

"It's incredible," Fitzpatrick said. "I mean, it's amazing moment caught on tape. But to me, an even more important moment that you see there, the fact that he's never been questioned by the FBI, never been questioned by the FBI in over almost two decades of federal investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, a man who had if not so much material information, and we have had complaints."

"I mean there are reports to the FBI, to [New York Police Department] in 1996 stemming from Wexner," she added, "from a victim that had spent time at Wexner's home. So it just like it it defies logic and it really makes me question our confidence in the FBI and in our justice system."

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