Hillary Clinton used her forced appearance on Thursday before a Republican-led panel probing Jeffrey Epstein to go on the offensive and demand President Donald Trump testify about his own links to the sex offender, while her husband, former president Bill Clinton, prepared to face lawmakers today, Friday 27 February, in what promises to be more perilous testimony.
The depositions are being held behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside, even though the Democratic power couple called for them to be open and televised – a move Bill Clinton denounced as akin to a “kangaroo court.”
Hillary Clinton’s testimony
When asked if she was confident that her husband did not know of Epstein’s crimes, Hillary Clinton said “I am.”
“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” she added. “I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I never went to his offices.”
In her opening statement published online, Clinton challenged the panel to question Trump about his connections to Epstein. “If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes… it would ask (Trump) directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said.
She told the panel that it “justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”
The hearing was dramatically paused for a brief time after a photo of Clinton in the deposition was posted online – an apparent breach of the closed-door arrangement. “We had agreed upon rules based on the fact it was going to be a closed hearing at their demand, and one of the members violated that rule, which was very upsetting,” Clinton said.
James Comer, the Republican who chairs the committee, said “the purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein” – the convicted sex offender who died while in custody. “There were a lot of questions that we asked that we weren’t satisfied with the answers that we got,” he added after the deposition concluded.
At the conclusion of Hillary’s appearance, Comer said lawmakers had “a lot of questions for her husband tomorrow.”
Democratic committee member Suhas Subramanyam said that “missing FBI files” omitted from the Epstein documents disclosures contain “serious accusations around sexual abuse” against Trump.
Bill Clinton’s upcoming testimony
Bill Clinton features prominently throughout the latest Epstein files disclosures, and Friday’s grilling comes with greater peril for the former president than for his wife, as he has acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein.
The former president has insisted that he broke ties with Epstein well before the disgraced billionaire’s 2008 conviction for sex offenses. Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work, but said he never visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
Previously unseen photographs from the files include one showing the former president reclining in a hot tub, part of the image obscured by a stark black rectangle. In another, Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Democrats say the investigation is being weaponized to attack political opponents of Trump rather than to conduct legitimate oversight, as Democrats seek to shift focus onto Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender.
Trump and Bill Clinton, both 79, feature prominently in the recently released trove of government documents related to Epstein, but said they broke any ties with the financier before his 2008 conviction in Florida as a sex offender. Mere mention in the files released by the US Department of Justice does not imply wrongdoing, and neither Clinton has been accused of a crime or formally investigated.
David Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, said recently that Clinton and Trump are “innocent of any wrongdoing.”
Background on Epstein investigation
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing those who were linked to Epstein, particularly in light of the Justice Department’s disclosures of millions of new documents related to its investigation of him.
Epstein cultivated a network of powerful business executives, politicians, celebrities and academics. He was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14 and died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
Epstein’s accomplice Maxwell, 64, is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. She appeared via video-link before the House Oversight Committee earlier this month but refused to answer questions, invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself.
The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify in the panel’s probe, but agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress.
Dozens of journalists have converged on the wealthy hamlet and the Secret Service erected metal barricades around the arts center where the depositions are happening.
While the depositions were behind closed doors, Clinton posted her opening statement on social media, with the transcript expected to be published upon approval by her lawyers. A video will follow within 24 hours, Comer said.
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