Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday in Chappaqua, New York, as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify on Friday, marking the first time a former US president has been compelled to testify before Congress.
The closed-door depositions came after months of back-and-forth between the Clintons and the Republican-controlled committee. The Clintons had initially offered sworn written statements, but committee chairman Rep. James Comer rejected those offers and threatened criminal contempt charges if they refused to appear in person. The Clintons then agreed to testify and pushed for the depositions to be held publicly, arguing it would demonstrate they had nothing to hide and limit political manipulation of their testimony. That request was denied.
Hillary Clinton told the BBC earlier this month that their record is clear, that her husband flew with Epstein on charitable trips, that she does not recall meeting Epstein, and that she had interacted with Ghislaine Maxwell at Clinton Foundation events on a few occasions. Maxwell’s name appears in relation to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010. Hillary Clinton’s name appears more than 700 times in the Epstein files, with the majority of those references being news articles about her 2016 presidential campaign that were shared with Epstein. There is no public evidence of wrongdoing by either Clinton in connection with Epstein.
Bill Clinton has acknowledged knowing Epstein in the early 2000s and has said the trips on Epstein’s private jet were connected to Clinton Foundation work. Flight logs show he flew on Epstein’s plane at least 16 times between 2002 and 2003. Court documents unsealed in 2024 referenced Clinton but did not allege criminal wrongdoing. He has maintained he was unaware of Epstein’s criminal conduct and had not spoken to him for years before his 2019 arrest.
The committee’s investigation covers several areas including the alleged mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation into Epstein and Maxwell, the circumstances of Epstein’s death in federal custody in 2019, the operation of sex trafficking networks and the ways Epstein and Maxwell sought to use influence to shield their activities from scrutiny. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting federal sex trafficking charges. Authorities ruled his death a suicide. Maxwell is currently in jail awaiting trial.
President Trump, who expressed some regret that the Clintons are being put through the process, bowed to political pressure last year to release Epstein case files, which renewed public attention and helped set the stage for the current congressional inquiry.
