(AFP) – Former US president Bill Clinton said in sworn testimony released on Monday by a US congressional committee that he had no knowledge of the sex crimes of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. Clinton also stated that President Donald Trump, a one-time close friend of Epstein, “never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein either.”
Bill Clinton and his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, were deposed last week by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. The depositions were held behind closed doors in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside, and the committee released videos of their testimony on Monday. Each video is about four and a half hours long.
Hillary Clinton told the panel that she did not know Epstein, and Bill Clinton said he broke ties with him before the financier’s sex crimes came to light in 2008. Bill Clinton acknowledged during his testimony that he flew on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work. “There’s nothing that I saw when I was around him that made me realize he was trafficking women,” he said.
Asked by a committee member whether he ever had sexual contact with any young women or girls introduced to him by Epstein or Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Clinton replied: “No.” The former president also recalled a conversation he once had on a golf course with Trump in 2002 or 2003. “The president never — this is 20 something years ago — never said anything to me to make me think he was involved in anything improper with regard to Epstein either,” Clinton said. “He just didn’t.” He quoted Trump as saying about Epstein: “You know, we had some great times together over the years, but we fell out all because of a real estate deal.” Trump has given various explanations over the years for the end of his once-close friendship with Epstein.
During her deposition, Hillary Clinton called for the panel to depose Trump about his relations with Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. Hillary Clinton angrily threatened at one point to cut the deposition short after a photo taken by a Republican lawmaker was released publicly in violation of the rules. “I’m done with this. If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home,” she said before pounding the table with her fist.
Both Bill Clinton and Trump figure prominently in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice, but neither has been formally accused of any wrongdoing. Bill Clinton has previously acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein but said he never visited his infamous Caribbean island, where the financier allegedly trafficked young women and girls to powerful business and political figures. Epstein was convicted in Florida in 2008 of soliciting sex from girls as young as 14 and was facing sex trafficking charges in New York when he died, which could have sent him to prison for the rest of his life. His death was ruled a suicide but, like much else around Epstein, is the subject of lurid conspiracy theories.
The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify, but the Democratic power couple agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress. Democrats say the investigation is being weaponized to attack Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.
– Chris Lefkow
© 2024 AFP
