Hillary Clinton’s House Oversight Committee deposition in Epstein probe paused after photo leaks
Former President Bill Clinton and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrive prior to the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump at the United States Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Melina Mara – Pool/Getty Images)
(CHAPPAQUA, N.Y.) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, New York, has been paused Thursday afternoon after a photo of her from inside the room was leaked, which is against committee rules.
The photo was posted by conservative social media influencer Benny Johnson who claimed it was provided by Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert.
The former first lady and former President Bill Clinton are participating in depositions as part of the committee’s probe into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Leslie and Colby Taylor, parents of Jay Taylor, speak to ABC News anchor Juju Chang about their late son and the dangers of 764. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — The parents of a Seattle-area teenager who was allegedly pushed to take his own life by a member of the online extremist network “764” have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Discord, claiming the social media giant “caused” their son’s suicide and “abetted one of the most depraved and dangerous child abuse cults in modern history.”
According to the lawsuit, Discord “supplied 764 with unlimited victims,” including 13-year-old Jay Taylor, who in January 2022 died by suicide outside of a local grocery store in Gig Harbor, Washington.
“It’s almost biblical in its definition of evil, what happened,” Jay Taylor’s father, Colby, told ABC News in an exclusive interview in November.
As ABC News has previously reported, 764 members find vulnerable victims on popular platforms, elicit private information and intimate sexual images from them, and then use that sensitive material to blackmail victims into mutilating themselves, harming others, or taking other violent action.
Members of 764 often host live online chats so others can watch the self-harm and violence in real time. The further they can push their victims, the more stature and respect they will receive within 764, authorities say.
“Discord [provided] 764 access to its platform, failed to take reasonable steps to prevent or disrupt such exploitation, and affirmatively maintained the same product design and defaults that enabled the abuse,” the new 31-page lawsuit alleges.
Colby Taylor previously told ABC News that he and his wife, Leslie, were preparing to file a lawsuit against Discord, hoping that legal action would pressure the platform to do more to stop online predators. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in a Pierce County, Washington, court, seeking an unspecified amount in damages.
As the Taylors described it to ABC News, Jay Taylor was a vulnerable victim. He was “funny” and “sweet,” and he had a knack for drawing and crafts, his mother recalled. But by the start of 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic had left Jay feeling isolated and lonely. And though he was assigned female at birth, he was in the midst of a gender transition, exacerbating his feelings of loneliness, his parents said.
In January 2022, Jay posted a message to Discord, saying, “I’m looking for friends, preferably LGBTQ for crochet buddies,” Jay’s father recalled.
Someone responded to Jay’s message, bringing him into a live chat with several others. Within an hour or so, the others in the group chat began telling Jay he should kill himself, Jay’s parents recounted.
A Discord user who called himself “White Tiger” online was leading the charge, directing others to push and manipulate Jay, according to Jay’s parents.
“Eventually, the pressure took hold of Jay,” their lawsuit says.
The FBI later identified “White Tiger” as a young German-Iranian medical student from Hamburg, Germany. He is currently on trial in Hamburg, charged with Jay Taylor’s murder and more than 200 other counts for the alleged abuse of dozens of victims. According to the Taylors’ lawsuit, Discord poses “a foreseeable risk of harm to youth users” and is “not reasonably safe as designed.”
“From the outset, Discord designed a platform structurally rife with obvious, risk-amplifying features–and when those risks materialized through 764, Discord housed it, grew it, and meanwhile marketed itself to more child users, guaranteeing their exploitation,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit further alleges that Discord is “refusing to invest in commonsense safety measures” and “deliberately understaffs and under-resources its safety and response team, employing a tiny fraction of what is needed to effectively control abusive conduct.”
764 was started on Discord by a teenager in Stephenville, Texas, who named it after the first three digits of his local ZIP code. Born in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when teenagers were stuck inside and flocked to online spaces, 764 was an even more vicious offshoot of other online groups exploiting children through blackmail and self-harm, authorities said.
Since then, 764 has spread around the world, growing into more of an ideology than a singular group, experts say. And other groups, inspired by 764, have formed with different names but identical tactics and goals. As of November, the FBI was investigating more than 350 people across the United States with suspected ties to 764 or similar networks.
The number has only increased since then, experts say. On Tuesday, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, James Comer, R-Kentucky, sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, demanding that FBI officials brief committee staff on the agency’s efforts to “track and apprehend” members of 764.
Citing reporting from ABC News, Comer wrote that the “disturbing tactics attributed to this network” warrant “rigorous oversight and an evaluation of whether existing federal countermeasures are effective and adequately resourced to combat these elusive online perpetrators.”
In September, Patel told lawmakers during a public Senate hearing that fighting 764 is now “a priority” for the FBI. He called 764-related crimes a new form of “modern-day terrorism in America.”
On Friday, a spokesperson for Discord said the company is reviewing the new lawsuit filed by Colby and Leslie Taylor.
After ABC News interviewed the Taylors several months ago, a Discord representative told ABC News in a statement that the platform is “committed to user safety” and that the “horrific actions of groups like this have no place on Discord or anywhere in society.”
According to a Discord spokesperson, the platform invests “heavily” in specialized teams and newly-developed artificial intelligence tools that can “disrupt these networks, remove violative content, and take action against bad actors on our platform.”
Discord also said it shares intelligence with other platforms, which can help identify bad actors even before Discord has spotted them, and Discord said it cooperates with law enforcement, proactively providing tips and other information to them.
Its tips have led to many arrests, including the arrest of Bradley Cadenhead, the Texas teen who started 764 and is now serving an 80-year sentence in state prison after pleading guilty to child pornography-related charges. And Discord recently announced new tools aimed at giving parents more control and more insight into their children’s accounts.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — As soon as Wednesday afternoon, a Texas jury will begin deliberating whether a law enforcement officer should be held criminally responsible for failing to act in the face of one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.
At issue is whether Gonzales — one of the first officers to arrive at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 — ignored his training and endangered dozens of students when he responded to the shooting.
Nineteen students and two teachers died, with police officers waiting 77 minutes to confront the gunman. While the shooting response has been the subject of hearings and investigations, the case against Gonzales marks the first criminal trial related to the shooting and the delayed police response.
Prosecution’s closing argument
The jury has an opportunity to “set the bar” for how officers should respond to school shootings, prosecutor Bill Turner said on Wednesday.
“If it’s appropriate to stand outside hearing [hundreds of] shots while children are being slaughtered, that is your decision to tell the state of Texas,” Turner said.
While teachers and students were sheltering in their classrooms — doing exactly what their training taught them to do in an active shooter scenario — the police officer trained to help them failed to act, Turner said. Turner argued that each gunshot fired at Robb Elementary was “notice to Adrian Gonzalez to advance toward the gunfire,” but he failed to follow his training and act in the crucial first minutes of the shooting.
“If you have a duty to act, you can’t stand by while the child is in imminent danger,” Turner said.
Turner pointed jurors to the testimony of teaching aide Melodye Flores, a key prosecution witness who said she pleaded with Gonzales to intervene. Turner argued that the warning from Flores and the clear sound of gunfire should have triggered Gonzales to act.
“The training is, you hear shots, you go to the gunfire. He heard shots, and Melodye Flores was pointing where to go to the gunfire. There’s nothing complicated about that,” Turner said.
Defense’s closing argument
Convicting Gonzales will send a clear message to officers who respond to this country’s next mass shooting, defense attorney Jason Goss said.
“What you tell police officers is, ‘Don’t go in. Don’t react. Don’t respond,'” Goss warned jurors. “We cannot have law enforcement feel that way.”
Goss argued that prosecutors tried to “massage the facts” of the case and “twist them all into a pretzel” to argue Gonzales failed to act. According to Goss, Gonzales did the best he could with the information he had when he arrived at Robb Elementary. While other officers arrived within the same timeframe, only Gonzales is being penalized for attempting to take action that day, he argued.
Goss attempted to empathize with the jurors and the families of victims, arguing he understood the desire for criminal accountability. But he reminded jurors, “The monster who hurt those kids is dead.”
But convicting Gonzales, Goss argued, would do “an injustice” for the victims of the shooting.
“You do not honor their memory by doing an injustice in their name,” he said.
What is he charged with?
Gonzales was charged with 29 felony counts of abandoning/endangering children — one count for each of the 19 students who died in the shooting and the 10 children who survived in classroom 112.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison, and Gonzales could spend the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted. While juries in Texas sometimes determine criminal sentences, Gonzales has opted to be sentenced by Judge Sid Harle if he is convicted.
What happened to the police chief’s case?
Along with Gonzales, prosecutors also charged former Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was the scene commander during the Robb shooting. His case has been indefinitely delayed due to a pending civil lawsuit involving the tactical unit that ultimately breached the classroom and killed the shooter.
Are there any comparable cases?
According to Phil Stinson — a professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who maintains a database of police officers who have been arrested — the case against Gonzales is uncommon but not unprecedented.
Prosecutors in Florida attempted to similarly charge a law enforcement officer for his response to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen were killed when a gunman opened fire that day, Feb. 14, 2018, in Parkland.
A jury in 2023 acquitted Scot Peterson, the former Broward County sheriff’s deputy, after he was charged with child neglect and culpable negligence for his alleged inaction following the shooting.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24, 2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 06, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — Deliberations are underway in the trial of former Uvalde schools police officer Adrian Gonzales on Wednesday after prosecutors and defense lawyers delivered their closing arguments.
Before jurors were sent to deliberate, District Attorney Christina Mitchell gave an impassioned plea, saying, “I know this case is difficult, and it has been difficult. But we cannot continue to let children die in vain.”
“What happened to Uvalde on May 24 can happen anywhere, at any time,” she said. “If it’s going to happen, and if we have laws mandating what the responsibility of a law enforcement peace officer is for a school district, then we better be ready to back it up.”
At issue is whether Gonzales — one of the first officers to arrive at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022 — ignored his training and endangered dozens of students when he responded to the shooting, which became one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.
Nineteen students and two teachers died, with police officers waiting 77 minutes to confront the gunman. While the shooting response has been the subject of hearings and investigations, the case against Gonzales marks the first criminal trial related to the shooting and the delayed police response.
Prosecution’s closing argument
The jury has an opportunity to “set the bar” for how officers should respond to school shootings, prosecutor Bill Turner said on Wednesday.
“If it’s appropriate to stand outside hearing [hundreds of] shots while children are being slaughtered, that is your decision to tell the state of Texas,” Turner said.
While teachers and students were sheltering in their classrooms — doing exactly what their training taught them to do in an active shooter scenario — the police officer trained to help them failed to act, Turner said. Turner argued that each gunshot fired at Robb Elementary was “notice to Adrian Gonzalez to advance toward the gunfire,” but he failed to follow his training and act in the crucial first minutes of the shooting.
“If you have a duty to act, you can’t stand by while the child is in imminent danger,” Turner said.
Turner pointed jurors to the testimony of teaching aide Melodye Flores, a key prosecution witness who said she pleaded with Gonzales to intervene. Turner argued that the warning from Flores and the clear sound of gunfire should have triggered Gonzales to act.
“The training is, you hear shots, you go to the gunfire. He heard shots, and Melodye Flores was pointing where to go to the gunfire. There’s nothing complicated about that,” Turner said.
Defense’s closing argument
Convicting Gonzales will send a clear message to officers who respond to this country’s next mass shooting, defense attorney Jason Goss said.
“What you tell police officers is, ‘Don’t go in. Don’t react. Don’t respond,'” Goss warned jurors. “We cannot have law enforcement feel that way.”
Goss argued that prosecutors tried to “massage the facts” of the case and “twist them all into a pretzel” to argue Gonzales failed to act. According to Goss, Gonzales did the best he could with the information he had when he arrived at Robb Elementary. While other officers arrived within the same timeframe, only Gonzales is being penalized for attempting to take action that day, he argued.
Goss attempted to empathize with the jurors and the families of victims, arguing he understood the desire for criminal accountability. But he reminded jurors, “The monster who hurt those kids is dead.”
But convicting Gonzales, Goss argued, would do “an injustice” for the victims of the shooting.
“You do not honor their memory by doing an injustice in their name,” he said.
What is he charged with?
Gonzales was charged with 29 felony counts of abandoning/endangering children — one count for each of the 19 students who died in the shooting and the 10 children who survived in classroom 112.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison, and Gonzales could spend the rest of his life in prison if he is convicted. While juries in Texas sometimes determine criminal sentences, Gonzales has opted to be sentenced by Judge Sid Harle if he is convicted.
What happened to the police chief’s case?
Along with Gonzales, prosecutors also charged former Uvalde schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who was the scene commander during the Robb shooting. His case has been indefinitely delayed due to a pending civil lawsuit involving the tactical unit that ultimately breached the classroom and killed the shooter.
Are there any comparable cases?
According to Phil Stinson — a professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who maintains a database of police officers who have been arrested — the case against Gonzales is uncommon but not unprecedented.
Prosecutors in Florida attempted to similarly charge a law enforcement officer for his response to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen were killed when a gunman opened fire that day, Feb. 14, 2018, in Parkland.
A jury in 2023 acquitted Scot Peterson, the former Broward County sheriff’s deputy, after he was charged with child neglect and culpable negligence for his alleged inaction following the shooting.
