Bill Clinton to face lawmakers in Epstein probe for rare testimony by a former president

Former President Bill Clinton is set to face questions Friday from members of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, making him the first sitting or former president to testify before members of Congress in over 40 years.

Clinton will be deposed in a closed-door setting one day after the committee questioned his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for around six hours about what she knew about Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

Committee chair James Comer, R-Ky., said Thursday that he expected the former president’s deposition to take “even longer.” The meeting is taking place in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons have a house.

The Clintons told the committee in sworn declarations last month that they had “no personal knowledge” of any “criminal activities” by Epstein or Maxwell.

Clinton has said she has no recollection of ever having met Epstein, but Bill Clinton has acknowledged he flew on his plane in 2002 and 2003 while he was traveling internationally for the Clinton Foundation. In his declaration, Clinton said Epstein “offered a plane that was big enough to accommodate me, my staff and my U.S. Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation’s philanthropic work.”

While President Donald Trump has accused Clinton of having taken dozens of trips to Epstein’s island in the Caribbean, Clinton said in his declaration that he was never there. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair last year that Trump “was wrong about that.”

Emails by Epstein the Justice Department released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act also indicated that Clinton did not go to the island, and Maxwell said in an interview with a top Justice Department official last year that he had never been there.

“I do not recall speaking to Mr. Epstein for more than a decade prior to his 2019 arrest” on sex trafficking charges, Clinton’s declaration said. Epstein, who pleaded guilty in Florida to state charges of soliciting a minor in 2008, died in jail while he was awaiting trial on federal charges. Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Files related to the Epstein probes that have been released to date include numerous pictures of Bill Clinton with Epstein and Maxwell. In some of the photos, Clinton is shown in a hot tub, swimming in a pool with Maxwell and sitting at a table with a woman sitting on his leg.

The pictures are undated, and it’s unclear where they were taken. None suggest any wrongdoing.

The Oversight Committee in August subpoenaed the Clintons and several former top Justice Department officials to testify about Epstein. After months of back and forth, the former first couple agreed to testify as the House was moving toward voting on contempt resolutions for the Clintons.

It’s very rare for a sitting or former president to appear before members of Congress. The last to do so was former President Gerald R. Ford in 1983, when he testified before a Senate subcommittee about planning for the bicentennial of the Constitution.

Ford also answered questions from Congress as president, appearing before a House subcommittee in 1974 to testify about his pardon of Richard M. Nixon, his predecessor.

The Democratic-led House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol subpoenaed Trump to testify in 2022. Trump challenged the subpoena, with his then-lawyer David Warrington, now the White House counsel, saying in a statement, “Long held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it.”

The committee withdrew the subpoena before it shut down at the end of 2022.

Democratic members of the Oversight Committee have said its move against Bill Clinton sets a new standard — and one that should apply to the current president.

“This committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents, and we’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats,” the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said Thursday. “And that should happen immediately.”

In her opening statement Thursday, Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, accused the committee of focusing on her and her husband “in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.”

“If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said.

Trump, who had a falling-out with Epstein before he was first charged criminally in 2006, has denied any wrongdoing, and authorities have not accused him of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. In November, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton” and other Democrats. The status of that investigation is unclear.

Asked this month about Clinton’s upcoming deposition, Trump said: “I think it’s a shame, to be honest. I always liked him.”

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