US House panel subpoenas Bill and Hillary Clinton for Epstein testimony
The investigative committee's Republican chair, James Comer, sent the subpoenas in response to two motions lawmakers approved on a bipartisan basis last month, as Congress navigated outrage among Donald Trump's supporters over the justice department's announcement that it would not release further details about Epstein, a disgraced financier who died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The subpoenas raise the possibility that more details will become public about Trump's relationship with Epstein, which stretched for years but appeared to have petered out by the time Epstein was convicted of sexually abusing girls in 2008. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on the existence of a sexually suggestive sketch and lewd letter Trump sent to Epstein as a 50th birthday gift in 2003.
The president and his allies have long flirted with conspiracy theories around Epstein's death in federal custody, but the justice department upended those by concluding he died by suicide and a long-rumored list of his client did not exist. That prompted some Trump supporters to criticize the president for failing to make good on his pledge to bring full transparency to the case, which Democrats moved to capitalize on by pushing congressional Republicans into tricky votes intended to make the Epstein case files public.
Shortly before House lawmakers left Washington DC for Congress's August recess, the Republican congressman Scott Perry won an oversight subcommittee's approval to compel depositions from the Clintons and the former top federal law enforcement officials in a bid to reveal more about Epstein's activities. Democratic congresswoman Summer Lee also successfully pushed a motion to subpoena justice department files related to the case.
In addition to the Clintons, the committee sent subpoenas to former attorneys general Jeff Sessions, Alberto Gonzales and William Barr, who served in George W Bush and Trump's presidencies, and Merrick Garland, Loretta Lynch and Eric Holder, who served under Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Former FBI directors James Comey and Robert Mueller also received subpoenas.
In the letter to Bill Clinton, Comer noted that the former president had flown four times on Epstein's private jet, and repeated an allegation that he had 'pressured' Vanity Fair not to publish sex trafficking claims regarding Epstein. The chair further says that Clinton was 'allegedly close' with Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite serving a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted on sex trafficking charges related to Epstein.
'Given your past relationships with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, the Committee believes that you have information regarding their activities that is relevant to the Committee's investigation,' Comer wrote.
In his letter to Hillary Clinton, Comer draws a more tenuous connect, writing: 'Your family appears to have had a close relationship with both Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell'. In addition to details about them, Comer notes that Clinton 'may have knowledge of efforts by the federal government to combat international sex trafficking operations of the type run by Mr. Epstein'.
Comer set Bill Clinton's deposition date as 14 October and Hillary's as 9 October. Others who received subpoenas were given dates ranging from mid-August through early October, while US attorney general Pam Bondi has until 19 August to release documents related to the case.
In addition to the subpoenas, Republican congressman Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna are collecting signatures for a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation compelling release of the Epstein files. That vote is not expected to happen until the House returns from recess in early September.
Trump has authorized the justice department to request release of the transcripts from the federal grand juries that indicted Epstein and Maxwell, while last week, deputy attorney general Todd Blanche interviewed Maxwell in Florida in what the White House said was a bid to uncover new details about the case.
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