Clinton Faces Epstein Deposition As Bipartisan Probe Deepens

Clinton Faces Epstein Deposition As Bipartisan Probe Deepens


Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to look Thursday earlier than the Home Oversight Committee for a closed-door, filmed deposition as a part of a bipartisan congressional investigation into the crimes of convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein, a continuing she has characterised as a politically motivated distraction from President Donald Trump’s personal documented ties to the late financier, however which she agreed to attend after going through the prospect of being held in contempt of Congress.

The deposition is scheduled to happen in Chappaqua, New York, the place the Clintons preserve their main residence. Former President Invoice Clinton is scheduled to provide his personal filmed, transcribed deposition the next day, Friday, February 27. Each classes shall be carried out beneath oath behind closed doorways, and Consultant James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the Home Oversight Committee, has mentioned transcripts shall be made public following the interviews.

The subpoenas compelling their look had been issued on August 5, 2025, following a unanimous bipartisan voice vote by the committee’s Federal Regulation Enforcement Subcommittee in July. The street from subpoena to deposition was extended and acrimonious.

Former Secretary Clinton’s deposition was initially scheduled for October 9, 2025, then rescheduled to December 18 after she cited the necessity to attend a funeral. She subsequently declined to suggest different January dates and failed to look when the committee issued a follow-on subpoena dated January 14, 2026. Former President Clinton adopted a virtually equivalent sample, lacking dates in October, December, and January, additionally citing a funeral on one event.

On January 21, 2026, the Oversight Committee voted to suggest that the total Home of Representatives maintain each Clintons in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoenas. Home Majority Chief Steve Scalise warned {that a} ground vote would proceed in the event that they continued to refuse. The Clintons relented days later, with their authorized staff finally accepting the usual deposition phrases, filmed, transcribed, with no time restrict and no restriction on the scope of questioning.

Hillary Clinton additionally publicly challenged the committee to carry the classes in open listening to reasonably than closed deposition, posting on social media that the Clintons had “instructed them what we all know, beneath oath” and accusing Republicans of turning accountability into “an train in distraction.” The committee declined, citing procedural consistency with how all different witnesses within the probe had been handled.

Neither Clinton has been accused of any crime in reference to Epstein. Hillary Clinton instructed the BBC in an interview this month that she doesn’t consider she ever met Epstein. Her spokesman Nick Merrill has questioned from the outset why she was subpoenaed in any respect. Invoice Clinton’s spokesman Angel Ureña has confirmed that the previous president traveled on Epstein’s aircraft 4 instances in 2002 and 2003, on journeys carried out for the Clinton Basis.

Former President Clinton has mentioned he lower ties with Epstein earlier than the financier was charged in Florida in 2006 with soliciting a minor, and has denied any wrongdoing. In an uncommon interview final yr, Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell instructed Deputy Legal professional Normal Todd Blanche that “President Clinton was my buddy, not Epstein’s buddy,” saying it was she who organized for Clinton and basis members to make use of Epstein’s plane in 2002. Maxwell is at present serving a 20-year federal jail sentence for intercourse trafficking expenses together with conspiracy to entice minors.

Hillary Clinton instructed the BBC that the committee’s curiosity in her and her husband was straightforwardly political.

“Why do they wish to pull us into this? To divert consideration from President Trump. This isn’t difficult,” she mentioned. Consultant Comer and committee Republicans have denied that cost, stating that the investigation is inspecting the total scope of Epstein’s community and that no particular person is exempt from scrutiny.

The investigation operates towards a backdrop of mounting public stress over the Trump administration’s dealing with of Epstein-related materials. The Epstein Information Transparency Act, handed by Congress in 2025, requires the Justice Division to make paperwork associated to Epstein public. The Trump Justice Division has launched greater than three million pages of data beneath the act. The doc releases have named a variety of political and enterprise figures, together with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Tesla chief government Elon Musk, in reference to Epstein’s social circles. Trump himself socialised extensively with Epstein throughout the Nineties and 2000s, earlier than Epstein’s 2008 Florida conviction. Consultant Comer has mentioned proof gathered by the panel doesn’t implicate President Trump in Epstein’s crimes.

The doc releases have additionally had vital worldwide penalties. In Britain, the fabric prompted legal investigations into a number of public figures, most prominently Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Peter Mandelson, each of whom had been arrested final week on suspicion of misconduct in public workplace over separate allegations related to their ties to Epstein.

Epstein was discovered lifeless in his cell on the Metropolitan Correctional Middle in New York in August 2019, whereas awaiting federal trial on sex-trafficking expenses. The New York Metropolis health worker dominated his demise a suicide by hanging, a conclusion that has been disputed by Epstein’s authorized staff and members of his household, who’ve known as for additional investigation. No official discovering has altered the unique ruling.

The Home Oversight Committee’s investigation covers a number of distinct areas: the alleged mismanagement of the federal authorities’s investigation into Epstein and his affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell; the extent and nature of Epstein’s community of affect; and the conduct of regulation enforcement and intelligence companies throughout a number of administrations.

The Clintons are amongst greater than a dozen witnesses subpoenaed, together with former attorneys basic Merrick Garland, William Barr, Jeff Classes, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and Alberto Gonzales, in addition to former FBI Administrators James Comey and Robert Mueller.

It stays unclear how a lot new data the Clinton depositions will produce. Former Secretary Clinton has maintained that she has little related data to supply. Each depositions are scheduled to happen with out public entry or stay broadcast. Consultant Comer has indicated that ought to the classes yield materials of adequate significance, the committee could convene a subsequent public listening to at which the Clintons might be known as to testify on the document earlier than cameras. No date for any such listening to has been set.

 

Africa At present Information, New York 

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