(WASHINGTON) — House Republicans are set to take the next steps on Wednesday to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with committee subpoenas related to the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
On Wednesday, Oversight Chairman James Comer is set to hold a markup of two resolutions finding the Clintons in contempt of Congress after they defied a subpoena for a deposition with the committee last week.
“The Clintons are not above the law, and the House Oversight Committee will move to hold them in contempt of Congress,” Comer, a Republican, said in a statement last week. “If Democrats refuse to hold the Clintons accountable, they will expose themselves as hypocrites.”
The Clintons have insisted that the subpoena is without legal merit, fighting the subpoena for months.
Last summer, Republicans and Democrats on Oversight’s Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee approved a motion to issue subpoenas to 10 individuals, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, for testimony related to their investigation into Epstein and his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Republicans have pointed at the former president’s travels on Epstein’s private aircraft in the early 2000s and the Clinton “family’s past relationship” with Epstein and Maxwell.
The contempt resolution is expected to advance out of the committee Wednesday afternoon — teeing up a full vote on the House floor days later. The timing of floor consideration won’t become clear until after the committee markup.
If Democrats oppose the floor vote, Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose just two Republican votes before a third GOP defector could upset passage.
The resolution, if passed, would direct the speaker of the House to refer the case to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia — under the Department of Justice — for possible criminal prosecution. A simple majority is needed to clear a contempt resolution, though it does not require passage in the Senate.
Besides defying the subpoena, neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and denies having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by the former president or his wife in connection with his prior relationship with Epstein.
Last month, in response to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Justice Department released several photographs of former President Clinton apparently taken during his international travels with Epstein and Maxwell between 2002 and 2003.
Following that disclosure, a spokesperson for the two-term Democratic president argued that the Trump administration released those images to shield the Trump White House “from what comes next, or from what they’ll try to hide forever.”
For months, David Kendall, the Clintons’ lawyer, has continuously argued that the Clintons have no information relevant to the committee’s investigation and should not be required to appear for in-person testimony.
Comer wrote in a letter to Kendall in October that the committee is “skeptical” that the Clintons have only limited information, and argued it was up to the committee, not the Clintons, to make determinations of the value of their testimony.
“[T]he Committee believes that it should be provided in a deposition setting, where the Committee can best assess its breadth and value,” Comer wrote.
Comer said in a statement on Tuesday that Bill Clinton’s lawyers made an offer for Comer, Ranking Member Robert Garcia and two members of each of their staffs to have a conversation with only former President Bill Clinton in New York. A Comer spokesperson said he “rejected the Clintons’ ridiculous offer.”
“The House Oversight Committee rejects the Clintons’ unreasonable demands and will move forward with contempt resolutions on Wednesday due to their continued defiance of lawful subpoenas,” Comer wrote in the statement.
In response to Comer’s statement, Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña told ABC News that the Clintons “never said no to a transcript.”
“Interviews are on the record and under oath. Whether it was written or typed isn’t why this is happening. If that were the last or only issue, we’d be in a different position,” Ureña said in a statement.
“You keep misdirecting to protect you-know-who and God knows what,” she said, referring to Comer.
Last week, the ex-president’s office publicly released two written declarations — dated Jan. 13 from each of the Clintons — which it said were provided to the Oversight Committee. Both Clintons denied any personal knowledge of the criminal activities of Epstein and Maxwell. Both also denied ever visiting Epstein’s private estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Once I left office, I devoted my time to the Clinton Foundation. As part of the work of the Foundation, I accepted offers from others to use private air travel for the philanthropic and life-saving humanitarian efforts,” former President Clinton wrote. “In the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein offered a plane that was large enough to accommodate me, my staff, and my U.S. Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation’s philanthropic work. As has been widely reported, I and my staff took trips on his plane from 2002-2003, visiting Foundation projects and attending conferences and meetings. I have never visited Little St. James Island, and I do not recall speaking to Mr. Epstein for more than a decade prior to his 2019 arrest.”
The former president acknowledges in his declaration that Epstein “may very well have attended” White House events during Clinton’s two terms in office and may have been among the “tens of thousands” of people photographed with him. But Clinton claimed he did “not recall encountering Mr. Epstein, or any specific interaction with him, while in office.”
Each of the Clintons contend that they had no involvement — while in office or afterward — in any criminal investigations or prosecutions of either Epstein or Maxwell.
“I did not direct, oversee or participate in the handling of the investigations or prosecutions of the Epstein or Maxwell cases,” both Clintons stated in their declarations.
Both Clintons also wrote that they could not recall the circumstances of how they met Maxwell — but remember that she later “began a personal relationship with a mutual friend.”
“To be clear, I had no idea of Mr. Epstein’s or Ms. Maxwell’s criminal activities,” former President Clinton wrote. “And, irrespective of any intent either may have ever had, I did not take any action for the purpose of helping them to avoid any type of scrutiny.”
“During my tenure in public office, from 1993 to 2013, I never had any responsibility for, or involvement with, the Department of Justice’s handling of the Epstein and Maxwell investigations or prosecutions,” Hillary Clinton wrote in her declaration.
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