In the long-running power struggle between the legislative and executive branches, a House Republican’s success this week at forcing a former president to agree to be deposed in a congressional investigation counted as a triumph for Congress.
The victory of Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the chairman of the Oversight Committee, in a monthslong battle with Bill and Hillary Clinton over testifying on Capitol Hill in his panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation marked a singular moment.
No former president has ever been compelled to testify to Congress under subpoena.
Members of Congress don’t necessarily think that is a good thing: They want the ability to bring in former presidents when they are relevant witnesses and may have something meaningful to say.
But Mr. Comer’s accomplishment also amounted to a remarkable use of government power to target a political adversary — the kind seen more often in autocratic societies where a peaceful transfer of power is not a given because leaders fear ending up in prison after leaving office. And it was one that some experts said further chipped away at the country’s democratic norms.
“It’s something we would do in a banana republic,” said the historian Douglas Brinkley. “The depositions will be controlled by Comer. The lighting could be odd, or sketchy, to make the Clintons look like criminals. It will generate conspiracy stories and they will try to show that the Democrats are the party of corruption, not the Republicans.”
Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview that, “like all powers of Congress or any other branch, these are powers that can be abused. We’re living in a period of spectacular abuse of power.”
Yet Democrats saw a silver lining in Mr. Comer’s move, which they said had given them new leeway to target President Trump and his family members down the line once the Democrats regain power in Congress and Mr. Trump is no longer in office.
“There’s no question that Oversight Democrats will want to speak to Donald Trump and others,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said in an interview. “That is a precedent that has now been set by Comer and House Republicans. If you watch President Trump’s remarks, it’s pretty clear he understands that.”
On Tuesday night in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump did not crow about the Clintons’ predicament, nor did he acknowledge that when it comes to Mrs. Clinton, he for years encouraged his crowds to call to “lock her up.” Instead, he expressed concern.
“I think it’s a shame, to be honest,” Mr. Trump told reporters of the Clintons’ being forced to testify. “I always liked him. Her? Yeah, she’s a very capable woman.”
He added: “I hate to see it, in many ways. I hate to see it, but then look at me — they went after me.”
Mr. Trump has been fairly transparent for months about what he thinks about the Epstein saga. And the spectacle of the Clintons appearing on Capitol Hill in an ongoing inquiry into Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019, only keeps alive a story that the president has long made clear he wants to move on from.
But for years, he has directed Republicans to target his political enemies, and to only investigate Democrats. In dangling the threat of criminal charges against the Clintons to secure their cooperation, Mr. Comer has followed through. His main investigations have targeted two of the last three Democratic presidents, and three of the last Democratic presidential nominees.
It was Mr. Comer who summoned Hunter Biden to testify in a House impeachment inquiry against his father, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
But pushing his case against the Clintons to the point where they capitulated to all of his demands put Mr. Comer in uncharted territory. And it’s not clear that it is where he or Mr. Trump necessarily planned to end up.
“It’s very unclear why they need to be subpoenaed in the first place, or what this is about,” said Michael Stern, a former senior counsel to the House of Representatives and an expert on legal issues affecting Congress. Mr. Stern said that committees’ harassing individuals for political purposes was a problem anyone could raise. But unfortunately for the Clintons, he said, “it’s not a strong argument legally for not showing up.”
When Republicans first landed on the idea of bringing in the Clintons for questioning, Mr. Comer was forced by one of his subcommittees to start by issuing subpoenas, which was already unusual. Testimony is typically negotiated, experts said, and voluntary cooperation is considered optimal.
“Because Chairman Comer was forced to start this with a subpoena, the committee arguably had to take a maximalist position from the start,” said Kimberly Hamm, a partner at Morrison Foerster who previously served as general counsel to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican.
Ms. Hamm said that this could be a problematic development for congressional oversight.
“It could incentivize witnesses to resist any early cooperation,” she said. “Either they entirely comply or they are threatened with contempt and there’s no benefit to voluntary cooperation. Starting with a subpoena does not necessarily get you information more quickly.”
In this particular case, the confounding factor was that the targets were a political power couple who have presented a unique target for the G.O.P. throughout the decades that they have been national figures. They also represent a past that the Democratic Party is eager to break from.
Many current House Democrats were still in grade school when Mr. Clinton occupied the Oval Office. It has been a decade since Mrs. Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election to Mr. Trump. And if the Clintons are still seen as a hot political target by Fox News viewers, there was little to no appetite among House Democrats for defending them, especially at a moment when they do not want to be seen as giving special treatment to anyone associated with Mr. Epstein.
“There’s no evidence that Hillary Clinton has any sort of important information,” Mr. Garcia said. “She is someone that Donald Trump clearly, politically, has had it in for, for a long time. But we’ve said we’ll talk to anyone.”
After nine Democrats on the panel joined Republicans in support of holding Mr. Clinton in contempt last month, and three Democrats backed holding Mrs. Clinton in contempt, the pair essentially became the sacrificial lambs for Democrats who hoped that their testimony might serve as a steppingstone for them to eventually target Mr. Trump.
“There would be no way to continue pursuing Trump on Epstein if the Clintons were given special privilege,” Mr. Brinkley said. “The Clintons will get roughed up, there will be an embarrassing soundbite or two, then it moves away from them.”
Mr. Raskin said that Congress should not be dragooning people to come testify just to harass them, whether they be a former first lady or any private citizen. But he said that Mr. Comer stumbled accidentally into creating more robust oversight.
“He’s really proud that he’s bringing in Bill Clinton,” Mr. Raskin said. “There are undoubtedly a lot of things that future former presidents will be able to testify about relating to this period of extraordinary lawlessness, chaos and corruption.”
Mr. Raskin added: “Democrats play by the rules, but these are the rules now. These are the new rules that Chairman Comer, in his infinite wisdom, has created.”
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times.
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