House Oversight Chair James Comer has demanded Bill and Hillary Clinton to sit for depositions about Jeffrey Epstein—and picked a date to help his boss Donald Trump
Comer issued the demand in a statement Friday, saying he intended to enforce subpoenas tied to the the panel’s probe of the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide while in federal custody in New York City in August 2019 as he awaited trial on new sex trafficking charges.
Bill Clinton’s deposition is scheduled at 10 a.m. in Washington D.C. on Dec. 17, and his wife Hillary Clinton’s deposition is scheduled the following day.
Dec. 18 is the day on which the 30-day deadline to release the Epstein files, set by a new law for which all but one member of Congress voted, expires. The committee is not asking Trump to testify.
Only four former presidents have ever testified to Congress, according to the Senate, and only one—Theodore Roosevelt—over a contentious issue, in his case campaign expenditures. The other three were William Howard Taft, who regularly testified while he was Chief Justice , Harry Truman, who testified on foreign relations once, and Gerald Ford, on the constitution. Others have been subpoenaed, most recently Truman, who refused to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954. It was the counterpart to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s infamous show trials.
Comer claimed he was simply going after the Clintons because they had ties to both Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Comer first subpoenaed the Clintons on Aug. 5 to question them about their relationship with Epstein. Their attorney responded on Nov. 3, offering only “a written proffer of what little information” they possessed.
“Given the admission that your clients possess some relevant information, your position amounts to a demand that the Committee forgo in-person testimony potentially relevant to its legislative oversight,” Comer said.
Comer added: “It is precisely the fact President Clinton and Secretary Clinton each maintained relationships with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell in their personal capacities as private citizens that is of interest to the Committee.”
Targeting of the Clintons has been a key MAGA tactic as the Epstein files crisis engulfs Trump.
On Nov. 14, the Justice Department also said it was looking into Epstein’s alleged connections to several prominent Democrats, including Bill Clinton.
Clinton had met Epstein at the White House when he was in office then traveled numerous times on Epstein’s jet in 2002 and 2003, including a lengthy tour of Africa with the pedophile and the actor Kevin Spacey. A photograph from the time shows Clinton receiving a massage from a young woman while on a trip with Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell was a guest at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding and a regular at the Clinton Foundation’s New York get-togethers.
The former president has long insisted he had no knowledge of Epstein’s criminal behavior, and denied ever traveling to the pedophile’s notorious Little St. James island, but Trump has suggested that he did.
Comer’s subpoenas to the Clintons and eight other individuals followed Congress’ release of a cache of explosive documents.
It included an email from Epstein’s brother, Mark, in which he asks about photos of Trump “blowing Bubba.” Internet users were quick to speculate that “Bubba” referred to a popular nickname for the former president, but Epstein told the Daily Beast that Bubba was not a reference to Clinton.
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives for the Clintons for comment.
Officials in the first Trump administration determined that Epstein’s death was a suicide, but conspiracy theories that he was killed to shield high-profile individuals have proliferated nonetheless.
In August 2019, just after Epstein died in his federal jail cell, Trump retweeted a claim that former president Clinton had been behind the pedophile’s death.
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