Bill Clinton takes his turn in House Oversight's hot seat

Members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are gearing up to spend hours today grilling former President Bill Clinton about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and longtime co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell.

It comes on the heels of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s six-hour-plus deposition Thursday, in compliance with a subpoena issued by the panel as part of its long-running Epstein investigation.

Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said they plan to highlight emails released by the Department of Justice about Epstein and Maxwell's involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation and photographs that show the former president with unidentified women.

Comer was flanked by Republican Reps. Eric Burlison of Missouri, John McGuire of Virginia, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, as well as South Carolina Reps. Nancy Mace and William Timmons.

“No one's accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, but I think the American people have a lot of questions, and our House Oversight Committee is committed to getting answers,” Comer said during a news conference before the deposition, adding that Hillary Clinton at several points the day before punted questions to her husband.

Bill Clinton has maintained he was an acquaintance of Epstein’s but stopped communicating with him at least a decade before the late financier’s arrest in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. His spokesperson Angel Ureña said on social media in 2019 that Bill Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane four times internationally in 2002 and 2003, adding that Secret Service details were present “on every leg of the trip.”

Hillary Clinton, during her testimony, denied ever meeting Epstein and said she had no knowledge of his or Maxwell’s crimes. Neither of the Clintons have been accused of wrongdoing.

“I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with [Epstein] before his criminal pleas in ‘08 were like most people,” she told reporters Thursday. “They did not know what he was doing, and I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow.”

Republicans at their Friday morning news conference said they were unconvinced, citing an email from Epstein saying the former secretary of State “looks better in person.” Mace claimed Hillary Clinton was “screaming” during the deposition.

“She was unhinged, and I hope that President Clinton is less unhinged today than his wife was yesterday,” Mace told reporters.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, called that an unfair characterization.

Garcia and other Democratic members of the committee — Reps. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, Wesley Bell of Missouri and Maxwell Frost of Florida, as well as Virginia Reps. Suhas Subramanyam and James Walkinshaw — each took turns speaking to the press before Bill Clinton’s deposition. They decried Republicans’ lines of questioning during Hillary Clinton’s testimony, saying it underscored the need for President Donald Trump to come before the committee, too.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who helped lead the charge to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, said Friday that Bill Clinton’s historic deposition sets a new standard for Oversight investigations overriding the so-called Trump rule, referring to the current president’s defiance of a congressional subpoena of the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol.

“Now we have the Clinton rule, which is: The presidents and their families have to testify when Congress issues a subpoena,” Khanna said. “And that means that Donald Trump needs to come before our committee and explain what he knew about Epstein and explain why we have not had a full release of the documents.”

Trump has maintained he had a falling out with Epstein years before his 2019 arrest and had no part in Epstein’s criminal activities.