Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused this Tuesday, 13th, to comply with a Congressional subpoena to testify in the House committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
“Each person must decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, regardless of the consequences. For us, now is the time,” the Clintons wrote in a long letter addressed to Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and posted on social media.
The Clintons called the House Oversight Committee’s investigation “legally invalid” and accused James Comer of allowing other former employees to give written statements about Epstein to the committee while selectively enforcing subpoenas against them.
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“You maintain that your subpoenas are inviolable when used against us, but you remained silent when the sitting president adopted the same position, as a former president, just over three years ago. We ask that you release this analysis to the public, so that everyone can see how this is yet another example of the casual disregard for existing law,” they wrote.
“Meanwhile, you have done nothing, in the exercise of your oversight function, to compel the Department of Justice to comply with the law and release all files on Epstein, including any material related to us, as we have publicly requested,” they continued.
Comer responded by stating that non-compliance is unacceptable. “Epstein’s victims deserve justice and answers. Refusing to comply with a bipartisan, congressionally authorized subpoena in our Epstein investigation is unacceptable. No one is above the law,” he responded.
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After Bill Clinton did not appear at the testimony scheduled for this Tuesday, the 13th, Comer stated that he will begin proceedings for contempt of Congress next week. “No one is accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. We just have questions,” Comer told reporters. “Anyone would admit they spent a lot of time together,” he added.
Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing related to Epstein, but he had a well-documented friendship with the wealthy financier throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Republicans have focused on that relationship as they fight for a full accounting of Epstein’s wrongdoing.
Documents from the Epstein investigation released by the United States Department of Justice show Bill Clinton in the company of Epstein. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. He was found dead in a New York prison cell while awaiting trial.
“We have attempted to provide what little information we have. We did so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” the Clintons wrote in the letter. Several former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but none have been required to do so.
In 2022, President Donald Trump faced a subpoena from the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, caused by a mob of his supporters.
Trump’s lawyers cited decades of legal precedent that they said protected a former president from being subpoenaed before Congress. The commission ended up withdrawing the subpoena.
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Comer also indicated that the oversight panel would not try to force Trump to testify about Epstein, saying he could not force a sitting president to testify. Trump also had a well-documented friendship with Epstein. He said he severed that relationship before Epstein was accused of sexual abuse.
*With information from the Associated Press.
