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Hillary Clinton in deposition says she never met Epstein, slams Republican efforts to combat sex trafficking
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Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton repeated her denial of ever meeting the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, this time in a deposition to Congress, and questioned the House committee’s commitment to sex trafficking victims.
“I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that,” Clinton, 78, said in the opening remarks she posted publicly Thursday.
Clinton’s statement came as she was due to deliver a closed-door deposition to the House of Representatives oversight committee in Chappaqua, N.Y., where she and former president Bill Clinton maintain a residence.
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who ran against Donald Trump, also accused the Republican-led panel of trying to shift focus away from Trump’s ties to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
“If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our president on his involvement; it would ask directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.”‘
Not accusing Clintons, Republican Comer insists
Clinton, highlighting her efforts to combat international sex trafficking while in Barack Obama’s administration, said the second Trump administration had “gutted” a State Department office dedicated to that issue.
“A committee endeavouring to stopping human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008,” she said, referring to a plea deal the Florida resident agreed to on state charges, while avoiding federal prosecution at that time.
James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee, says the Clintons are being asked to give depositions in U.S. Congress because they ‘haven’t answered very many questions’ about their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. Comer also didn’t reject the possibility of hearing from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who also had ties to the late convicted sex offender.
The Clintons initially refused to testify before the committee, but relented when the House oversight committee led by Republican James Comer moved to hold them in contempt of Congress. Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify to the committee on Friday.
Comer, Republican from Kentucky, of Kentucky, a Republican, insisted it was a bipartisan effort to hear from the Clintons. Nine Democrats voted along with all 25 Republicans on the panel to hold Bill Clinton in contempt, with three Democrats going along with the 25 Republicans on the Hillary Clinton vote.
“No one is accusing at this moment the Clintons of any wrongdoing,” Comer said.
He said the committee would seek to find out about any interactions she might have had with Epstein, his involvement with the Clintons’ charitable work, and any relationship she may have had with jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
Maxwell attended the 2010 wedding of Chelsea Clinton, the Clintons’ daughter. The previous year, the British socialite was first publicly mentioned as a person who may have procured girls for Epstein, though that media coverage was limited to Palm Beach, Fla., newspapers at a time before social media and #MeToo boosted local stories about sexual misconduct.
Maxwell’s name was mentioned due to a 2009 civil suit settlement Epstein had reached with a Jane Doe victim, now known years later to be the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Maxwell would be convicted on federal sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022.
Epstein visited the White House 17 times while Clinton was in office, according to records from his presidential library, but it’s not clear they met one-on-one during that time. An early 1990s photo indicates that Epstein and Maxwell were at a White House-hosted evening event where many other people were in attendance.
Bill Clinton has denied any wrongdoing, or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal behaviour during their relationship. The former president has previously said their contact in person was largely concentrated between the years 2001 and 2003. Clinton has previously said there was no contact between the pair after 2005, but has never publicly stated if there was a reason the relationship ended.
Trump’s Justice Department has released more than three million pages of Epstein-related documents over the past several months to comply with a law passed by Congress, the Epstein Transparency Act, spearheaded by House legislators Ro Khanna, a Democrat, and Republican Thomas Massie.