House lawmakers have reached an agreement with Bill and Hillary Clinton that will require the former president and former secretary of state to testify as part of the ongoing congressional investigation into deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, avoiding a vote to hold them in contempt of Congress.
House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) announced the agreement with the Clintons Tuesday after weeks of negotiations that took place under the threat of contempt. Hillary Clinton is set to testify on February 26 and her husband will do so the following day.
“After delaying and defying duly issued subpoenas for six months, the House Oversight Committee moved swiftly to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings in response to their non-compliance. Once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed, filmed depositions this month,” Comer said in a statement.
The Oversight Committee issued subpoenas to the Clintons in August to have them testify for the Epstein investigation. Both of them refused to testify in January after they repeatedly demanding that the Oversight Committee allow them to delay their testimony. In a stunning rebuke, the Oversight Committee recently voted on a bipartisan basis to advance contempt of Congress proceedings against the couple.
The contempt vote reflected the salience of the Epstein issue and the Clintons’s reduced influence over the Democratic Party. Bill Clinton and Epstein were friends in the 1990s, as demonstrated by Epstein’s visits to the Clinton White House and Clinton’s flights on Epstein’s infamous jet.
Clinton has not been credibly accused of any wrongdoing in connection to his friendship with Epstein. But photos of Clinton pictured alongside unidentified women did appear in the Trump administration’s initial batch of Epstein files that were released in December. Last week, the Department of Justice released an additional trove of Epstein files showing Epstein’s interactions with numerous powerful and influential figures, even after he was a convicted sex offender.
The Trump administration released the Epstein documents to comply with bipartisan legislation that passed overwhelmingly in November. The administration has struggled to fully comply with the law because the Justice Department holds millions of Epstein files, many of which have to be redacted to protect the identity of victims and censor pornographic materials.
President Trump and Epstein were friends in the 1990s and early 2000s, but Trump has not been credibly accused of any wrongdoing related to Epstein. The Trump administration’s initial refusal to release the Epstein files last year brought fresh scrutiny to Trump’s ties to Epstein and Epstein’s broader sex trafficking activities. Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges in Manhattan. His untimely death was ruled a suicide, a conclusion the Trump administration affirmed in its evaluation of the Epstein case.
Separately, the Oversight Committee has released troves of Epstein documents provided by his estate in response to the panel’s investigative actions. The committee launched its bipartisan investigation last summer because of the firestorm surrounding Trump’s friendship with Epstein and the administration’s choice not to release the files.
Next week, the Oversight Committee is expected to hear testimony from Epstein’s longtime partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. She is currently serving a 20 year prison sentence for a 2021 federal sex trafficking conviction stemming from her activities with Epstein. The Trump administration moved Maxwell to a lower security facility over the summer after she interviewed with the Justice Department and praised Trump’s behavior from back when she knew him.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed his friendship with Epstein and called the Epstein files a “hoax” perpetrated by the Democratic Party. He sued the Wall Street Journal in July for revealing an ominous 50th birthday card he allegedly wrote to Epstein in 2003 on a silhouette of a woman. Trump and the White House have claimed the card is fake, even though Epstein’s estate turned it over to the Oversight Committee.
“Not only wasn’t I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein but, based upon information that has just been released by the Department of Justice, Epstein and a SLEAZEBAG lying ‘author’ named Michael Wolff, conspired in order to damage me and/or my Presidency,” Trump posted on Truth Social, in reference to Wolff’s prior correspondence with Epstein.
“So much for the Radical Left’s hope against hope, some of whom I’ll be suing. Additionally, unlike so many people that like to ‘talk’ trash, I never went to the infested Epstein island but, almost all of these Crooked Democrats, and their Donors, did,” he added.
Trump has ordered the Justice Department to investigate Clinton and other powerful Democrats associated with Epstein. Attorney General Pam Bondi delegated the probe to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office, although nothing has come from it. Deputy Attorney Geneal Todd Blanche said Sunday the disturbing materials in the latest batch of Epstein files may not be enough to charge anybody, but did not rule out the possibility.