Former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said on Monday that they have agreed to speak with members of the House Oversight Committee as part of its investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Their announcement came days before the House planned to vote on whether to find the pair in contempt of Congress for refusing to sit for closed-door, transcribed depositions with the committee regarding Epstein.
The House Rules Committee met Monday evening to complete procedural steps required to bring the contempt vote to the House floor, but ultimately delayed the proceedings when House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Kentucky) announced that the Clintons had agreed to the depositions.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of ongoing discussion and negotiations about the Clinton contempt report. I think we need more time for [the Oversight Committee] to clarify with the Clintons what they are actually agreeing to,” said Rules Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina). “Accordingly, the Committee will postpone further consideration of the contempt. However, should there not be substantial compliance and agreement overnight, the Committee will return to continue the hearing on the contempt.”
It is unclear when the depositions might be held; as of Monday evening, Oversight staff members were still negotiating with the Clintons’ attorneys on the perimeters of the sessions.
“The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again and they have provided no dates for their depositions,” Comer said in a statement. “The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.”
Earlier on Monday, Comer rejected an offer the Clintons’ attorneys made last week that would have limited the scope of the interview to matters related to the investigations and prosecutions of Epstein, imposed a four-hour time limit on each session and allowed Bill Clinton to bring in his own transcriber. The attorneys also requested that Comer withdraw the subpoenas; that request was denied as well.
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.
Comer has consistently maintained that a full deposition of both Clintons is necessary, and in late January accused them 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.
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