The House on Tuesday secured dates for former president Bill Clinton’s and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s testimonies in the Jeffrey Epstein probe after the couple dodged subpoenas and faced a looming contempt vote.
House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) confirmed that Bill Clinton is scheduled for a deposition on Feb. 27, with his wife scheduled for the day before. House Republicans gave the couple a noon deadline to agree to transcribed and taped depositions with no time limits. The House would have moved forward with contempt proceedings had the couple refused to comply.
“Once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely CAVED and will appear for transcribed depositions this month,” Comer said on Tuesday. “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.”
The Clintons’ decision to participate in the probe is a dramatic shift from last month, when they argued that the investigation was invalid and politically motivated. In a Jan. 13 joint letter to Comer provided to the New York Times, the Clintons said, “There is no plausible explanation for what you are doing other than partisan politics.”
The letter invoked President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots. “This past year has seen our Government engage in unprecedented acts, including against our own citizens. People have been seized from their homes, their workplaces, and the streets of their communities. … The people who laid siege to the U.S. Capitol have been pardoned and called heroes,” the Clintons wrote.
The House subpoenaed the Clintons in August, and the couple repeatedly delayed the investigation until January, when they said they would not participate, risking criminal action by the Department of Justice. Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were each sentenced to four months in prison under the Biden administration when the House voted to hold them in contempt after they refused to testify. It was likely that multiple Democrats would have voted to hold the Clintons in contempt, Politico reported.
“Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences,” the Clintons wrote last month in their defiant letter. “For us, now is that time.”
