Bill and Hillary Clinton refuse to testify in House Epstein investigation | US politics

Bill and Hillary Clinton announced they would not comply with a subpoena demanding congressional testimony about their dealings with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, while launching an extraordinary attack on Republicans and Donald Trump.

In August, the Republican-led House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the former president and first lady after its chairman, James Comer, announced that the committee would examine the government’s handling of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by what was determined to be a suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.

In a letter to Comer on Monday, the Clintons’ lawyers called the subpoenas “invalid and legally unenforceable, unrelated to a valid legislative purpose, unwarranted because they fail to seek relevant information, and constituting an unprecedented violation of the separation of powers.”

The testimony requirement “runs counter to the clearly defined limits on Congress’s investigative power proposed by the United States Supreme Court,” they wrote, adding that “it is clear that the subpoenas themselves – and any subsequent attempt to enforce them – are nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass political rivals, as ordered by President Trump.”

Bill Clinton’s subpoena ordered him to appear to testify on Tuesday and Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. After the former president failed to appear, Comer told reporters at the Capitol that he would decide whether to hold him in contempt next week.

“I think it’s important to note that this subpoena was passed in a bipartisan manner by this committee. This is not something that I just issued as chairman of the committee,” Comer said.

“No one is accusing Bill Clinton of anything, of any wrongdoing. We just have questions, and that’s why Democrats voted with Republicans to subpoena Bill Clinton.”

Clinton was known to be friends with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s, before the financier pleaded guilty in 2008 to charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor in Florida.

The former president has denied knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and survivors of his abuse have not accused Trump of wrongdoing.

Sara Guerrero, a spokeswoman for Democrats on the Oversight Committee, said: “Cooperation with Congress is important and the committee should continue to work with President Clinton’s team to obtain any information that may be relevant to our investigation.” »

In a separate statement, the Clintons criticized Comer’s handling of the investigation, saying it had “prevented progress in uncovering the facts about the government’s role.” They noted that the commission interviewed only two people as part of its investigation — former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and former Attorney General William Barr — while refusing to interview seven former top government officials, even though they had been subpoenaed.

They then attacked Republicans’ acquiescence to the president’s agenda, including their support for a hard line on immigration enforcement, the recent killing of a U.S. citizen in Minnesota by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and the presidential pardon for the January 6 insurrectionists.

“Stopping the Republicans’ cruel agenda while you work harder to bring a contempt charge against us than you did in your investigation last year would be our contribution to fighting this madness,” the Clintons wrote.

Controversy over the government’s handling of the Epstein case erupted last July, when the Justice Department issued a memo declaring the case closed, which ran counter to the conspiracy theories Trump and his top officials had expressed sympathy for during their 2024 campaign.

In the months that followed, a bipartisan group of House lawmakers forced passage of a law to make public all government records related to Epstein, which passed in November despite opposition from Republican congressional leaders and Trump.

Although some documents have been redacted, Clinton appears in several photographs 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.

The department continues to release the Epstein files, even though legislation requires the Justice Department to release all files by December 19. Last week, lawmakers asked a federal judge to appoint a special master to compel the disclosure of all documents relating to the late financier.