Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knew nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking. And they weren’t his close friends.
That’s the message an army of lawyers for the Clintons delivered to House Republicans, ahead of the GOP-led Oversight Committee vote, holding the former first couple in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify in person before their panel.
The Clintons say the subpoenas are legally invalid, and that they’ve already provided the limited information they possess in writing to the committee.
But Republicans say the public record tells a different story.
Epstein visited the Clinton White House at least 17 times.
Bill Clinton also shows up repeatedly on Epstein’s flight logs on his private jet, and newly released files included photos of Clinton with young women.
The committee rejected a last-ditch offer to interview the Clintons on their terms, and the contempt vote against both Clintons passed with bipartisan support on Wednesday.
I’m Susan Ferrechio, reporter for The Washington Times.
This is my question and answer segment on the House GOP’s Epstein investigation and the growing showdown over whether the Clintons will testify.
Why are the Clintons being held in contempt now?
Why is the committee now taking up and voting on a contempt vote against the Clintons?
The House subcommittee overseeing this voted last year to summon the Clintons in through a subpoena to testify about their knowledge about Epstein. So those subpoenas went out about five months ago. Since then, Clinton’s lawyers have been going back and forth with the committee negotiating, they say, terms of an interview. But it turned into what the committee perceived to be a stalling tactic. So they finally decided, we’re just going to move ahead with this vote because we’ve given them long enough.
They set a date for the two to appear. They did not appear. And after that date passed, that’s when the committee said, okay, we’re going to hold them in contempt of Congress at the committee level. And that’s where we reached this week that they said, times up, We’ve been negotiating this for five months. We’re going to have this vote. And Democrats also voted along with Republicans on that. So Democrats did put up an argument that they should just keep negotiating, and they would have a better chance of actually hearing from the Clintons instead of holding this vote. But ultimately, the vote happened, and Democrats voted along with Republicans to hold them in contempt at the committee level.
What does it mean to be held in contempt of Congress?
Oftentimes, Congress will hold people in contempt and nothing happens. The matter is referred to the Justice Department, and then it’s up to the Attorney General to decide whether to move forward and prosecute the person held in contempt. Oftentimes, it’s completely ignored. Sometimes it’s not.
During the Biden administration, two former Trump administration members were found in contempt of Congress, and they both served jail time. Now, do we expect that to happen with the Clintons? No, we don’t. The expectation is it will reach the Department of Justice and it will sit there. I think there’ll be negotiations for testimony. That’s often what will happen.
There’ll be a contempt resolution. It gets sent to the Justice Department and negotiations continue for the testimony. That’s happened for decades. And I believe that that will be the outcome here. And that’s if it gets to the House floor. It’s very possible they’ll work out a deal between the contempt resolution voted on in committee on Wednesday and a full House floor vote, which again is at least two weeks away. So it’s very possible that they’ll never be held in contempt of Congress. And if they are, they’ll still have an opportunity to work out a deal to testify.
So do we think that the Clintons will be put behind bars for not coming into Congress and testifying about Jeffrey Epstein? Absolutely not.
What evidence are the Republicans pointing to?
The evidence the Republicans cite are, of course, the White House logs during the Clinton presidency that show that Epstein visited 17 times. They also point out that Clinton is showing up on the flight logs on Epstein’s private jet and in photos of Clinton with young women in Epstein’s private plane and in other photos on trips with Epstein.
The Clintons were friends with Epstein, as well as his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s now serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex trafficking charges. For many years, Maxwell and Epstein appeared alongside the Clintons at events, and Maxwell was a guest at the wedding of Chelsea Clinton.
Why do lawmakers want in-person testimony from the Clintons?
What are lawmakers saying that they are hoping to get only from their live testimony? The lawmakers want an opportunity to question the Clintons. So far, their only offer is to have just the committee chairman and the top Democrat, not all of the members of the committee. And a lot of other members say they would like to question Clinton themselves. And that’s one of the reasons why the vote on Wednesday was a bipartisan vote. Democrats are saying they also want to interview the Clintons, but they feel that they should further negotiate to try to get them to come into Congress.
What’s the Clintons’ argument for avoiding in-person testimony?
What’s their lawyer’s argument on why they insist they don’t have much to add? Clinton’s lawyers say that the last time the former president was in touch with Epstein was long before his 2008 conviction on soliciting prostitution with a minor. They say that the Clintons really didn’t know much about Epstein, knew nothing about the sex trafficking allegations, and that any contact the former president had with Epstein was a very long time ago.
What did the Clintons offer instead of the in-person testimony?
Well, first they offered written sworn declarations, saying what they knew and what they didn’t know about Epstein. They already sent those to the committee. They then offered to have the committee travel to New York, but only the top two members and bring each staff member along to take notes. They declined to allow a transcript of the hearing and said they could only take notes and that was the end of that.
And then on Wednesday they backtracked and said they would allow a transcript. And that’s where the negotiations stopped because the vote took place and they were found in contempt by this committee.
Watch the video for the full conversation
Read more: House committee votes to hold Clintons in criminal contempt for refusing to testify about Epstein
