Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are scheduled to give depositions today and tomorrow, respectively, to the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, but neither has confirmed their attendance, a committee spokesperson said last night.
“The Clintons have not confirmed their appearances for their subpoenaed depositions,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “They are obligated under the law to appear and we expect them to do so. If the Clintons do not appear for their depositions, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings.”
Bill Clinton is scheduled for a deposition at 10 a.m. today and Hillary Clinton is scheduled for tomorrow morning. The Clintons were issued subpoenas in August along with several former attorneys general and former FBI Director James Comey as part of the committee’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Both depositions for the Clintons were originally scheduled for October.
In a letter to the Clintons’ lawyer in December, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said he would delay the depositions a second time because of the Clintons’ attendance at a funeral. But Comer said the lawyer, David Kendall, was “unwilling to provide any alternative dates for your clients’ testimony.” So Comer set the new dates for today and tomorrow.
Angel Urena, a spokesperson for Bill Clinton, said of Comer in December: “For months, we’ve been offering the same exact thing he accepted from the rest, but he refuses and won’t explain why. Make of that what you will.”
Nick Merrill, a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton, issued a similar statement about Comer last month. “Since this started, we’ve been asking what the hell Hillary Clinton has to do with this, and he hasn’t been able to come up with an answer,” Merrill said.
The initial batch of Epstein files released by the Justice Department last month included numerous pictures of Bill Clinton, who’d flown on Epstein’s plane for Clinton Foundation trips in the early 2000s, before Epstein was charged with any sex crimes.
Clinton has denied any wrongdoing, and his spokesman last month called on Trump to direct that all pictures and references to him in the files be released.
As he left the Capitol last night, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters that it “would be contempt of Congress” if the Clintons do not attend this week’s depositions.