In another sign that American politics is trapped in the Upside Down, last week a rogue band of House Democrats voted to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress.
It was a bit of a surprise turn in these hyper-polarized times. The charges stem from the Clintons’ refusal to testify behind closed doors before the House Oversight Committee in its investigation of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On Jan. 13, just hours before Mr. Clinton’s deadline to appear before the committee, the Clintons sent letters to its chairman, James Comer, decrying their treatment and defying their subpoenas. The committee voted to recommend contempt charges to the full House the next week. Nine of the panel’s 21 Democrats joined Republicans to pass the measure against Mr. Clinton. Three supported the one against Mrs. Clinton as well.
The Democrats did this despite pleas from the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, to oppose the charges — to give the Clintons more negotiating time and to thwart this shameless Republican play to put Democrats on the defensive and fracture the caucus. Post-vote, Nancy Pelosi, the fearsome House speaker emerita, privately took the rebels to the woodshed, according to CNN.
I feel the leadership’s angst. And the Clintons’ reluctance is understandable. Mr. Comer’s investigation has been geared primarily toward shifting the heat off President Trump, a former pal of Mr. Epstein’s, and onto prominent Democrats with past ties to the disgraced financier. But to the rebel Dems, I say: Way to go!
Yes, their contempt votes are politically ticklish. And of course Mr. Comer is bending the oversight process to deflect the Epstein focus from Mr. Trump. These are dark times, dominated by a morally bankrupt president. But as the Democrats work to regain the public’s trust and to shed their image as the party of elites, they cannot be seen as treating elites in their party as above the law. Especially with a scandal about sexual abuse. Even more especially when the situation involves Mr. Clinton, whose own licentiousness has haunted the party for over three decades. (Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Clinton have denied any knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s purported sex trafficking of young women and underage girls.)
Several of the Democrats who backed the contempt measures are on the younger side (grading on the congressional curve, of course), including Representatives Summer Lee, Emily Randall and Maxwell Frost. Among the party’s rising generations, there is little lingering nostalgia for the Clinton era or the Clintons personally. Far from it. Many are itching for their party to embrace fresh values, fresh blood and a fresh start.
Refusing to get drawn into this showdown is a good step toward helping Democrats at last turn the page on Bill and Hillary, who for many in the party wore out their welcome long ago.
With their votes, the nine outliers denied Republicans an easy line of attack about how Dems don’t give a flip about truth, justice and decency when one of their own blah, blah, blah. The vote also drew a stark moral line between their caucus and a G.O.P. that recognizes no higher principle than covering the current president’s backside.
It’s no secret that Mr. Trump needs a shiny distraction in the Epstein scandal. When the oversight committee released a batch of documents from Mr. Epstein’s estate in November, the president responded by ordering the Justice Department to dig for Epstein dirt on Mr. Clinton and other Democrats. Pam Bondi, the attorney general, jumped right on that, despite her department’s having previously asserted that the scandal merited no further investigation. And despite her current slothlike release of the existing files.
Mr. Comer’s subpoenaing of the Clintons, especially of Mrs. Clinton, feels equally noxious and desperate. It also seems based partly on the calculation that Democrats would feel compelled to blindly circle the wagons around their team’s V.I.P.s, as Republicans so often do around Mr. Trump.
But the 2020s are not the 1990s, and Democrats long ago learned the price of protecting a self-indulgent leader from the repercussions of his bad behavior. “But what about Bill Clinton!” has for too long been the G.O.P.’s stock answer when a sex scandal rocks its ranks. Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly brandished Mr. Clinton’s sexual misconduct as a way to distract from his own. In 2016 Mr. Trump even invited multiple women who had accused Mr. Clinton of sexual abuse to attend one of his debates against Mrs. Clinton. It was a gross — and brilliant — stunt aimed at undermining whatever moral high ground Mrs. Clinton hoped to occupy.
Mr. Clinton insists he has nothing to hide regarding Mr. Epstein. Yay for him. But not even a former president can defy a subpoena — issued with bipartisan approval, mind you — because he and his wife consider it unfair. Mr. Clinton had a relationship with Mr. Epstein. He owes the American people answers, even if he does not get to dictate the terms of disclosure.
The best outcome now is for the Clintons to feel newly motivated to work out a deal with the committee and short-circuit a House vote on contempt. Barring that, the entire Democratic caucus may soon need to take a position on this mess. If so, Democrats should take a deep breath, and make clear that they are on the side of transparency, accountability and the law, no matter who is in the hot seat.
Then they should double down on pummeling Mr. Comer and other Trump enablers for continuing to drag American politics down the rabbit hole toward nihilism.
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