MUST-SEE: Dana Bash’s ‘Gotcha’ Attempt Backfires, Inadvertently Exposes Democrats

CNN host Dana Bash attempted to catch Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) in a “gotcha” moment on live television on Wednesday; instead, he shot her down.

Burchett, who is a member of the House Oversight Committee, made an appearance on Bash’s program, “Inside Politics,” on Wednesday afternoon. During the interview, Burchett said that the panel is moving to release Justice Department files concerning the world’s most infamous human trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, after they had redacted the names of underage victims.

“Nobody trusts Washington, D.C., and for good reason,” Burchett told Bash. “Nobody thinks Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy from the front and the back, and they found a bullet in the Parkland Hospital basically unscathed, yet that’s what we’ve been told for years, and so, you know, we have a history of lying to the public, and it just continues through this thing, and it’s just, we’ve got to get to the bottom of this.”

“But my major concern, of course, is those thousand or so who are young girls at the time who were raped and protecting their, you know, their identities,” the lawmaker said, “without them getting any into the media spotlight and also protecting the innocent people that may be mentioned casually in these files that flew on a plane, didn’t go to the island or what have you, that could be brought into this. So those are the two areas I want to protect the innocent, but I want to hang the guilty.”

Bash then asked the Tennessee Republican why Congress was responsible for ordering the release of the Epstein files rather than the DOJ.

“I don’t know, I don’t trust anybody in Washington,” Burchett answered. “Dana, as you know, you know, I’ve passed some of the toughest laws in the country, and it’s like pulling teeth in Tennessee. We’re very conservative people, but it always seems to be anytime this is involved in it, and it disgusts me, really, because you’ve got people whose lives have been ruined and they will never, ever regain a sense of of community because of these dirtbags, and I would hope that we could punish them as quickly as possible and get to the bottom.”

When she finally thought she had Burchett snared, Bash lobbed her “gotcha” question, asking, “It disgusts you that Trump’s Justice Department isn’t releasing it? What disgusts you?”

“No ma’am. We didn’t under Joe Biden. He had it for 4 years, and that’s why I really don’t think there’s much about Trump in there, because President Biden would have released it as well if it had,” he replied. He then professed his belief that Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Bash then tried to slam the administration by saying the Trump administration said Epstein committed suicide, mocking Burchett before moving the conversation to a different topic.