Plaskett justifies text exchange with Epstein, says 'you get information from people where you can'

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Democratic Delegate Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands defended her text messages with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a CNN interview Wednesday.

In response to backlash and a Republican-led censure effort over the 2019 texts, the Virgin Islands' nonvoting delegate in Congress said she was seeking information from Epstein, not forming a friendship. 

"And, as a prosecutor, you get information from people where you can," Plaskett told CNN's "The Situation Room."

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The House Freedom Caucus led a bid Tuesday night to censure Plaskett after text messages between her and Epstein, exchanged during the February 2019 congressional testimony of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, surfaced online.

The texts, exchanged during Cohen's 2019 hearing, where he accused President Donald Trump of arranging payments to hide alleged extramarital affairs during his 2016 campaign, show Epstein taking a strong interest in Plaskett's questioning.

The messages appeared to show Epstein influencing Plaskett's line of questioning. In one exchange, Epstein wrote, "He's opened the door to questions re who are the other henchmen at Trump Org."

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Plaskett replied at the time, "Yup. Very aware and waiting my turn."

The censure motion against Plaskett failed after Democratic leaders defended her.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called the attempt "one more pathetic effort to distract and divert attention from the fact that the president's name appeared more than a thousand times already in the small fraction of material released on Epstein."

The next day, Plaskett dismissed suggestions that her texts with Epstein indicated a friendship, saying she was solely trying to gather information. 

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"I believed that Jeffrey Epstein had information, and I was going to get information to get at the truth. Having a friendship with him is not something that I would deem to have," she told CNN. "I'm just moving forward."

When asked whether her conduct represented an "error in judgment" since Epstein had already been accused of sex trafficking at the time, Plaskett responded, "There are a lot of people who have done a lot of crimes.

"I've interviewed confidential informants. I've interviewed narcotics, drug traffickers and others," Plaskett said. "And that doesn't mean that I'm their friend, that doesn't mean that they are friendly with me. It means they have information that I need, and that I'm trying to get at the truth and that's what I did."