Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed to testify in a House investigation into late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein Monday (February 2) night, though the Republican leading the probe claims an agreement hasn’t been finalized, the Associated Press reports.
Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, continued to call for charges against the Clintons Monday evening, claiming they defied a congressional subpoena when their attorneys emailed staff for the Oversight panel and said they’d accept Comer’s demands and “will appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates.”
The attorneys requested that Comer agree not to move forward with contempt proceedings, but the Kentucky Republican said he was not immediately dropping the charges, which could result in a substantial fine and possible incarceration if passed by the House and prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
“We don’t have anything in writing,” Comer told reporters, noting that he was open to accepting the Clintons’ offer, though “it depends on what they say,” via the Associated Press.
The late negotiations coincided with Republican leaders advancing the contempt resolution through the House Rules Committee, the last hurdle needed prior to being sent to the House floor for a vote. Clinton would be the first former president held in contempt and facing potential prison time. In December, Clinton called for the release of all files related to Epstein in order to avoid further insinuation of wrongdoing against people “who have been repeatedly cleared” in a statement shared by his longtime spokesman Angel Ureña.
Clinton was seen in several photos released by the Justice Department on December 19 in adherence with the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed by Congress, which included one in a hot tub and others with celebrities, while the department was criticized for withholding hundreds of thousands of pages of additional files.
“The Epstein Files Transparency Act imposes a clear legal duty on the U.S. Department of Justice to produce the full and complete record the public demands and deserves,” the statement from Ureña reads. “However, what the Department of Justice has released so far, and the manner in which it did so, makes one thing clear: someone or something is being protected. We do not know whom, what or why. But we do know this: We need no such protection.
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