Former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton will be deposed by the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) said on Tuesday.
The Clintons agreed to speak with the committee on Monday after previously refusing to sit for closed-door, transcribed depositions with the committee regarding Epstein. The House planned to vote on whether to find them in contempt of Congress for refusing to be deposed; votes on that matter have now been suspended.
“Once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed, filmed depositions this month,” Comer said in a statement. “We look forward to questioning the Clintons as part of our investigation into the horrific crimes of Epstein and Maxwell, to deliver transparency and accountability for the American people and for survivors.”
Hillary Clinton’s deposition is scheduled for Feb. 26; Bill Clinton’s is expected to be on Feb. 27.
”
The Clintons are among 10 individuals the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed for testimony as part of its months-long investigation of Epstein and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to two charges of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor. He was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019 and died in federal custody later that year. His death was ruled a suicide. Judges and lawmakers say that over decades, he abused, trafficked and molested scores of girls, many of whom have come forward in court and in other public forums.
Maxwell was convicted on sex trafficking charges in 2021 after a federal court found she recruited girls on Epstein’s behalf and facilitated sexual encounters between them and the financier. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Last year, she was transferred to a minimum security prison. Comer said that Maxwell will sit for a deposition Feb. 9.
Neither Clinton has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they have no knowledge of relevance to the committee’s investigation. A spokesman for the former president has previously said that he met Epstein several times and took four trips on his airplane but knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes. Bill Clinton has appeared in Epstein-related photographs released by Congress and the Justice Department.
Both Clintons were originally scheduled to speak with the committee in October 2025; those sessions were rescheduled for December. The appearances were moved a second time after the Clintons said they planned to attend a funeral, according to committee aides.
The Clintons told the committee they would not participate in closed-door depositions rescheduled for Jan. 13-14, arguing that the panel’s subpoenas were “legally invalid,” a claim repeated in a letter from their attorneys ahead of the committee’s contempt vote.
The couple also said that they should be excused from providing in-person testimony because they had provided sworn statements containing all the information they have about Epstein. Other former officials, including former attorneys general Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales, have submitted sworn statements in lieu of depositions.
“There is no plausible explanation for what you are doing other than partisan politics,” the Clintons wrote in a letter to the committee explaining their mid-January decision. “To say you can’t complete your work without speaking to us is simply bizarre.”
After the Clintons did not appear for their scheduled depositions, the Oversight Committee passed resolutions to hold them in contempt in late January in a bipartisan vote, paving the way for a full House vote on the matter.
There was some question early on Tuesday about whether the Clintons would agree to the deposition structure mandated by the committee. Comer has pressed the Clintons to sit for depositions of no set length that are transcribed and filmed, while the couple sought more limited interviews. Those requests led Comer to accuse the couple in January of believing “their last name entitles them to special treatment.”
Contempt of Congress — which is punishable by up to a year in prison — is rarely invoked, but it has been utilized more in recent years. Lawmakers found Stephen K. Bannon and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress in 2021 for defying a subpoena issued by the special committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Both served four-month sentences.
The Oversight Committee’s investigation is one of two congressional efforts to force more disclosure about Epstein. An effort led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and Ro Khanna (D-California) led to a law that required the Justice Department to make files created during its investigation of Epstein public by Dec. 19.
The department did not meet that deadline. It released tens of thousands of pages of material in December 2025, and what it said were an additional 3 million pages in late January.
The post Clintons finalize deal to appear for House Epstein investigation depositions appeared first on Washington Post.
