Clintons refuse House Epstein subpoena as contempt proceedings loom

Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton said Tuesday they will refuse to comply with a House Oversight Committee subpoena requiring them to testify in its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, calling the probe “legally invalid.” Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, said he will open contempt of Congress proceedings against them the following week after Bill Clinton did not appear for a scheduled deposition at House offices Tuesday.

The confrontation raises unresolved questions about congressional power to compel testimony from former presidents while a separate bipartisan effort to force public release of Justice Department files on Epstein’s sex trafficking case has also stalled, with members of Congress alleging the department committed “criminal violations” by releasing only 12,000 of more than 2 million documents under review.

The Clinton refusal

In a letter released on social media, the Clintons said Comer was on the cusp of a process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”

“We will forcefully defend ourselves,” the Clintons wrote. They accused Comer of allowing other former officials to provide written statements about Epstein to the committee while selectively enforcing subpoenas against them.

“We have tried to give you the little information we have. We’ve done so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” the Clintons wrote.

A subcommittee of the Oversight panel had adopted the subpoenas for the Clintons in August without allowing Democrats to cast individual votes, the Associated Press reported.

Contempt threat

Comer said the committee would begin contempt proceedings even as he acknowledged it does not accuse the Clintons of wrongdoing related to Epstein.

“No one’s accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. We just have questions,” Comer told reporters after Clinton failed to appear for the scheduled deposition. “Anyone would admit they spent a lot of time together.”

Bill Clinton had a well-documented friendship with Epstein throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. The Associated Press reported that Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein. Comer cast the subpoena as a bipartisan effort.

Contempt of Congress proceedings, if pursued, would potentially start a process that Congress has rarely reached for and could result in prosecution from the Justice Department, according to the Associated Press.

Former presidents and Congress

Multiple former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but none has been compelled to do so, the Associated Press reported. In 2022, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot subpoenaed then-former President Donald Trump, but ultimately withdrew the subpoena after Trump’s lawyers cited legal precedent they said shielded an ex-president from being ordered to appear before Congress.

Comer indicated the Oversight Committee would not attempt to compel testimony from Trump about Epstein, saying the committee could not force a sitting president to testify. Trump, a Republican, was also friends with Epstein, the Associated Press reported; Trump has said he severed that relationship before Epstein was accused of sexual abuse.

The Justice Department has also not completely fulfilled the committee’s subpoena for its files on Epstein, according to the Associated Press.

Push for Epstein files

In a parallel development, Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, wrote to U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer on Jan. 8 asking him to appoint a neutral expert to oversee the release of investigative materials from the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking cases. The letter was delivered to the judge Monday night.

The congressmen said they had “urgent and grave concerns” that the Justice Department had failed to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the files to be released the previous month. They said they believed “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

Khanna and Massie described the release of 12,000 documents out of more than 2 million under review as a “flagrant violation” of the law’s requirements that had caused “serious trauma to survivors.”

“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” the congressmen wrote. They asked the court to appoint a monitor with authority to report on the true scope of document production and whether improper redactions had occurred.

Engelmayer directed the Justice Department and Maxwell, if she chooses, to respond to the congressmen’s allegations by Friday.

Justice Department officials, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, have said the files’ release was slowed by redactions required to protect the identities of abuse victims, the Associated Press reported.

Background

Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. He died by suicide in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial.

Maxwell, a British socialite and former Epstein girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 conviction for recruiting girls and women to be abused by Epstein and for sometimes joining in the abuse. Maxwell recently sought to set aside her conviction, citing what she described as new evidence of constitutional violations at her trial.