House committee questions Bill Clinton about Epstein ties - Spectrum News

Former President Bill Clinton told members of the House Oversight Committee that he had “no idea of the crimes” that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was committing, according to an opening statement of his testimony that he shared on social media Friday.

“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Bill Clinton wrote in the statement.

His closed-door deposition at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Chappaqua, New York, marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress.

Bill Clinton’s sit-down with the committee came a day after his wife, former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testified during her own deposition, held in the hamlet north of New York City where the couple lives.

“I answered every one of their questions as fully as I could based on what I knew, and what I knew is what I said in my statement,” Hillary Clinton said, Thursday evening after her deposition.

Neither of the Clintons has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to Epstein.

“President Clinton came in and answered tough questions from both the minority party and the majority party,” California Rep. Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat, said during a break in testimony Friday, without providing much additional detail about the former president's remarks.

Hillary Clinton has previously said that her husband’s ties to Epstein were solely through his charitable work. A spokesperson for Bill Clinton acknowledged in 2019 that the former president had flown on Epstein’s plane and said the trips “included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.”

“Jeffrey Epstein was in the White House 17 times, while Bill Clinton was president,” Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said ahead of Friday’s deposition. “We know that Bill Clinton flew on Jeffrey Epstein's plane at least 27 times. So those are questions that we're going to ask.”

Several photographs of Bill Clinton were included in the trove of records released by the Justice Department under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed into law in November.

In his opening statement, Bill Clinton wrote that “even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause. We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long. And by the time it came to light with his 2008 guilty plea, I had long stopped associating with him.”

The former secretary of state said Thursday evening that she herself had never met Epstein nor “had any connection or communication with him,” and that she knew Ghislaine Maxwell, the disgraced financier’s former girlfriend and longtime confidant, “casually as an acquaintance.”

Epstein died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while he was awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, and Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in luring victims to be abused by Epstein over the course of a decade.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton had called for their testimony to be public, with Hillary Clinton saying Thursday that it was “disappointing” that her deposition was not conducted in the form of a public hearing. But Comer shot down that idea earlier this month and has repeatedly emphasized that the transcripts and videos from the Clintons’ depositions would be made public.

Heading into the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Comer had predicted that Hillary Clinton’s deposition would be “long” and Bill Clinton’s “even longer.” On Friday afternoon, the Kentucky Republican estimated that the former president’s testimony could stretch out over some six hours.

During that break, Comer said that Bill Clinton had been asked if President Donald Trump should be asked to testify, and the former president replied, "That's for you to decide."

Bill Clinton “went on to say that the president, Trump, has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved, and he meant with Epstein,” Comer told reporters.

Garcia later said that the narrative provided by Comer was not “a complete, accurate description,” and that recording and transcript would reflect what happened during the exchange.

Democrats on the committee have called for Trump to provide his testimony about his relationship to the late financier, contending that Bill Clinton’s deposition set a precedent. Garcia and other lawmakers reiterated the demand on Friday.

Heading into Hillary Clinton’s deposition Thursday, Comer pushed back on that idea, telling reporters that Trump “gets questioned every day by just about every one of you.”

When asked by reporters Friday afternoon about Bill Clinton’s sit-down with the committee, Trump said: “I don’t like seeing him deposed. But they certainly went after me a lot more than that.”

Democrats on the committee also continued their calls Friday for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to appear before the House Oversight Committee.

Heading into Bill Clinton’s deposition, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he believed there were enough committee members who would vote in favor of subpoenaing Lutnick.

Separately, two Democratic senators sent a letter to Lutnick on Friday asking him to produce “all records of your meetings, phone calls, and correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein or his associates, covering the full duration of your acquaintance.”

Requests for comment made to the Commerce Department about the calls for Lutnick’s testimony, as well as the senators’ letter, were not immediately returned.

When asked about the potential for Lutnick to be forced to appear before the committee, Trump told CNN that the commerce secretary "would go in and do whatever he has to say. ... He's a very innocent guy. He's doing a great job."

Hillary Clinton’s deposition lasted an estimated 6.5 hours, and she noted to reporters afterward that her testimony was briefly paused. The delay reportedly stemmed from objections by Hillary Clinton’s lawyers after photos from inside the closed-door meeting were leaked by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., to a right-wing commentator, who posted them on social media.

“We had to cease the hearing for a period of time until we could get assurances that no rules would be broken going forward,” she said. “We returned to answer questions repetitively, literally over and over again. I don't know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his home. I never went to his offices, so it's on the record numerous times.”

Hillary Clinton said that her deposition later veered into topics, including UFOs and Pizzagate, which she described as “one of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet.” Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory that surfaced during the 2016 presidential election that falsely claimed members of the Democratic Party, including Hillary Clinton, were connected to pedophilia ring operating out of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant.