{"id":405363,"date":"2026-01-13T22:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/405363\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T22:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T22:13:11","slug":"bill-and-hillary-clinton-refuse-to-testify-in-house-epstein-investigation-us-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/405363\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill and Hillary Clinton refuse to testify in House Epstein investigation | US politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their relationships to the disgraced financier <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/jeffrey-epstein\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>, while launching an extraordinary attack on Republicans and Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Republican-led House oversight committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/aug\/05\/jeffrey-epstein-bill-hillary-clinton-subpoena\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in August<\/a> subpoenaed the former president and first lady after its chair, James Comer, announced the panel would review the government\u2019s handling of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by what was determined to be suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In a letter to Comer dated Monday, attorneys for the Clintons called the subpoenas \u201cinvalid and legally unenforceable, untethered to a valid legislative purpose, unwarranted because they do not seek pertinent information, and an unprecedented infringement on the separation of powers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The demand for testimony \u201cruns afoul of the clearly defined limitations on Congress\u2019 investigative power propounded by the Supreme Court of the United States\u201d, they wrote, adding that \u201cit is clear the subpoenas themselves \u2013 and any subsequent attempt to enforce them \u2013 are nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass political rivals, as President Trump has directed\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bill Clinton\u2019s subpoena commanded him to appear for testimony by Tuesday, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/hillary-clinton\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hillary Clinton<\/a> by Wednesday. After the former president did not show up, Comer told reporters at the Capitol that he would move to hold him in contempt next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cI think it\u2019s important to note that this subpoena was voted on in a bipartisan manner by this committee. This wasn\u2019t something that I just issued as chairman of the committee,\u201d Comer said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cNo one\u2019s accusing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/clinton\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Clinton<\/a> of anything, any wrongdoing. We just have questions, and that\u2019s why the Democrats voted along with Republicans to subpoena Bill Clinton.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Clinton was known to be friendly with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution with a minor in Florida.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The former president has denied knowledge of Epstein\u2019s crimes and survivors of his abuse have not accused Clinton of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Democrats on the oversight committee said, \u201cCooperating with Congress is important and the committee should continue working with President Clinton\u2019s team to obtain any information that might be relevant to our investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In a separate statement, the Clintons criticized Comer\u2019s handling of the inquiry, saying it had \u201cprevented progress in discovering the facts about the government\u2019s role\u201d. They noted that the committee had interviewed only two people as part of its investigation \u2013 former labor secretary Alexander Acosta and former attorney general William Barr \u2013 while declining to question seven former top government officials even though they had been issued subpoenas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">They went on to attack Republicans\u2019 acquiescence to the president\u2019s agenda, including their support of hardline immigration enforcement, the recent killing of a US citizen in Minnesota by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and the president\u2019s pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cBringing the Republicans\u2019 cruel agenda to a standstill while you work harder to pass a contempt charge against us than you have done on your investigation this past year would be our contribution to fighting the madness,\u201d the Clintons wrote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Controversy over the government\u2019s handling of the Epstein case erupted last July, when the justice department released a memo declaring the matter closed, which flew in the face of conspiracy theories that Trump and his top officials had expressed sympathy for while campaigning in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In the months that followed, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers forced a voted on legislation to release all government files related to Epstein, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/nov\/18\/house-vote-epstein-documents\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">passed in November<\/a> over the opposition of Congress\u2019s Republican leaders and Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Though some documents were redacted, Clinton is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2025\/dec\/20\/epstein-files-which-royalty-politicians-musicians-and-actors-are-in-the-photos\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">shown in several photographs<\/a> that became public when the justice department began releasing batches of files in December, including one of the former president in a hot tub and swimming in a pool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The department continues to release the Epstein files, even though the legislation required the justice department to release all of the files by 19 December. Last week lawmakers asked a federal judge to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jan\/08\/judge-appoint-official-release-epstein-files\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">appoint a special master<\/a> to compel the release of all documents related to the late financier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their relationships&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-405363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}