At the start of his Congressional deposition Friday, Bill Clinton addressed the trove of photos of himself with Jeffrey Epstein released by the Justice Department last year.
In opening remarks posted on social media, the former President said he didn’t have any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation — despite anyone’s “interpretation of those 20-year-old photos.”
“I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing,” Clinton said of the convicted sex offender, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. “No matter how many photos you show me.”
Clinton posted the remarks ahead of his closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, before members of the House Oversight Committee, which has been investigating Epstein’s connections to powerful people.
In December, in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Justice Department released several photos showing Clinton with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking girls to Epstein for sex. The photos show Clinton and Maxwell swimming together in a pool, along with a woman whose face is redacted. They also show Clinton in what appears to be Epstein’s private jet with a female, whose face is redacted, on his lap.
The photos also show Bill and Hillary Clinton at parties and dinners with Epstein.
The former president has long maintained he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse. Epstein occasionally visited the White House while Clinton was president, and Clinton has said he traveled internationally with Epstein on his private jet four times between 2002 and 2003, following his presidency, for Clinton Foundation initiatives. There’s no indication the two were still in contact by the time Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida in 2008.
“As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing — I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals,” Clinton said in the opening statement of his deposition.
Maxwell appeared to have her own relationship with the Clintons.
She worked to obtain funding for the Clinton Global Initiative, records released by the Justice Department show. Maxwell also said in an interview with Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last year that she was closer to Clinton than Epstein was.
“President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend,” she said.
“President Clinton liked me, and we got along terribly well. But I never saw that warmth, or however you want to characterize it, with Mr. Epstein — so I didn’t see that,” Maxwell said in her interview. “I didn’t see President Clinton being interested in Epstein. He was just a rich guy with a plane.”
Bill Clinton’s deposition on Friday follows Hillary Clinton’s on Thursday. She said she didn’t think she ever met Epstein. She has said she met Maxwell on “a few occasions” in social settings.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee said they would publicly release videos of the depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as they did with a deposition of Les Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands, who previously hired Epstein as a financial fixer.
Clinton’s deposition marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress pursuant to a subpoena.
Democrats on the committee say Clinton’s deposition marks a precedent that should require President Donald Trump, who has also been photographed with Epstein, to testify before the committee.
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