Clintons Demand Public Hearing After Former First Couple Agrees To Be Deposed in Epstein Investigation

Lawyers and staff members for President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are now demanding a public hearing about their relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after earlier stating that they wanted to be deposed only behind closed doors. The Clintons were due to be held in contempt of Congress this week before their staff abruptly announced Monday night that they had agreed to sit for separate depositions at the end of February. Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were subpoenaed last summer by the House Oversight Committee, led by Congressman James Comer, as part of the committee’s investigation into the government’s handling of the Epstein matter. The Clintons were subpoenaed alongside several FBI directors, U.S. attorneys general, and the top prosecutor behind a sweetheart plea deal which allowed Epstein to avoid prison. After spending months trying to offer sworn declarations rather than in-person depositions, Mr. Comer pushed to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with his committee’s subpoenas. Those resolutions were passed by the committee in a bipartisan vote.After telling the committee on Monday night that they would be willing to be deposed, Mr. Comer put the resolutions aside to consider their offer. On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Clintons, Nick Merrill, said the former first couple would not only agree to be filmed during the depositions — as Mr. Comer had demanded — but they would testify publicly, as well.“At the 11th hour, James Comer asked for a camera, that’s fine. He can have 1,000 cameras,” Mr. Merrill wrote on X. “The Clintons will do this publicly.”Around that same time, Mr. Comer announced that Mrs. Clinton had agreed to be deposed on February 26, while Mr. Clinton would be questioned on February 27. “After delaying and defying duly issued subpoenas for six months, the House Oversight Committee moved swiftly to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings in response to their non-compliance,” Mr. Comer said in a statement Tuesday. “Once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed, filmed depositions this month.”In recent weeks, it became clear that both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were sure to be held in contempt by the House of Representatives in what may have been a wide, bipartisan vote. In the Oversight Committee vote on the resolutions last month, a plurality of Democrats on the committee voted with Republicans to hold Mr. Clinton in contempt, while a smaller bipartisan majority voted to hold Mrs. Clinton in contempt. Mr. Clinton had asked Mr. Comer to meet privately in New York, where he would answer questions from both the chairman and the top Democrat on the committee but with no other lawmakers present. Because Mrs. Clinton never spent time with Epstein, she asked to submit a sworn declaration rather than appear for an in-person deposition. Mr. Comer rejected both offers. Had the contempt resolutions passed the House this week, the former first couple almost certainly would have faced prosecution at Washington, D.C. During President Biden’s term, two former aides to President Trump — Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — each spent months in prison for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the special committee investigating the attack on the Capitol in 2021. Contempt charges depend greatly on which party controls the Justice Department. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt during the Obama administration, though he was never prosecuted. Mr. Comer drafted a contempt resolution for Hunter Biden, who similarly refused to appear for a deposition during the Oversight Committee’s investigation of the then-president’s family’s businesses. Mr. Comer told the New York Sun at the time that he did not believe the elder Mr. Biden’s Justice Department would take up a prosecution of the first son, saying instead that he hoped the next Republican-led DOJ would prosecute the younger Mr. Biden.

Clintons Demand Public Hearing After Former First Couple Agrees To Be Deposed in Epstein Investigation

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