Former President Bill Clinton told lawmakers Friday he never saw or did anything wrong during his friendship with deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Clinton testified before the House Oversight Committee for its bipartisan investigation into Epstein’s disturbing activities and the federal government’s files on him.
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said in his opening statement, which he shared on social media.
“As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing—I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
The closed-door hearing came after photos of Clinton with unidentified women were featured in the Department of Justice’s initial batch of Epstein files released in December. President Trump has urged the Justice Department to investigate Clinton and other prominent Democrats linked to Epstein. Clinton was friends with Epstein in the 1990s and early 2000s, to the point where Epstein visited the Clinton White House and Clinton was a guest on Epstein’s jet.
Clinton has never been credibly accused of misconduct in connection with his friendship with Epstein, and their friendship ended well before Epstein’s 2008 conviction on state-level sex crimes. Epstein died in 2019 while awaiting trial in Manhattan on federal sex-trafficking charges. His longtime accomplice, convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her crimes. Earlier this month, Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment rights when brought in to testify for the Oversight Committee’s investigation.
At the conclusion of Clinton’s testimony, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) slammed his Democratic colleagues and emphasized Clinton’s testimony that Trump did nothing wrong during his friendship with Epstein.
“President Clinton is now the third witness who has testified under oath that there is no evidence of President Trump committing wrongdoing. It’s sick how Democrats have weaponized this investigation to put politics above survivors. Ranking Member Robert Garcia and Democrats must cease their partisan witch hunt against President Trump,” Comer said.
Clinton’s testimony followed months of negotiations with the congressional panel and an extraordinary bipartisan vote to hold him in contempt if he continued to refuse to testify. His wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testified for the investigation Thursday despite having no connections to Epstein.
“I have to get personal. You made Hillary come in. She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing. She has no memory of even meeting him,” Bill Clinton said in his statement.
Hillary Clinton did confirm that Maxwell attended their daughter Chelsea Clinton’s wedding almost 16 years ago. Maxwell attended the ceremony as the plus-one of someone else who was invited, Hillary Clinton told reporters. She did not identify the guest who brought Maxwell to the wedding.
The Oversight Committee has released tranches of files from Epstein’s estate and received testimony from several high-profile individuals as part of its Epstein investigation. Last week, Epstein patron Les Wexner, a retail billionaire best known for being the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, distanced himself from the disgraced financier during an hours-long private session.
The Epstein files released by congressional lawmakers and the Justice Department have reverberated across the Western world due to Epstein’s powerful connections in politics, business, and entertainment. The Trump administration began releasing the Justice Department’s files in late 2025 after Congress passed bipartisan legislation compelling the federal government to do so. Victim identities and pornographic materials are redacted in the documents, as the law requires.
Epstein’s activities gained fresh scrutiny last year when the Trump administration decided not to release the files. On top of that, the administration affirmed the assessment that Epstein committed suicide and declared that Epstein was not blackmailing powerful figures. President Trump’s friendship with Epstein in the 1990s and mid-2000s gained significant attention in the months after the administration’s announcement.
Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Epstein files and likened them to a “hoax” perpetrated by the Democratic Party. Trump is featured numerous times in the Epstein files because of their long friendship.
Like Clinton, Trump severed ties with Epstein well before his conviction, and authorities have not accused him of misconduct. The Epstein files have caused a drawn-out scandal for the Trump administration, given the ties between Trump administration officials and the deceased pedophile.