(AFP) – A Republican-led US House panel voted Wednesday to launch contempt of Congress proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton over their refusal to testify before its probe into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Oversight Committee advanced resolutions accusing the Democratic ex-president and former secretary of state of defying subpoenas to appear in person to explain their links to the disgraced financier, who died in custody in 2019.
The full House of Representatives, also majority Republican, will now decide — at a date yet to be announced — whether to formally cite the couple for contempt and refer them to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution. “No witness, not a former president or a private citizen, may willfully defy a congressional subpoena without consequence,” committee chairman James Comer said. “But that is what the Clintons did and that is why we are here today.”
The vote underscored how the Epstein affair continues to cast a long shadow over Washington, entangling some of the most prominent names in US politics and highlighting the sharp partisan battles that have shaped the scandal. Lawmakers are examining how authorities handled earlier investigations into Epstein, whose 2019 death in custody as he awaited trial on sex-trafficking charges was ruled a suicide.
Democrats say the probe is being weaponized to attack political opponents of President Donald Trump — himself a longtime Epstein associate who has not been called to testify — rather than to conduct legitimate oversight. Trump spent months trying to block the disclosure of the files linked to Epstein, who moved in elite circles for years, cultivating ties with billionaires, politicians, academics, and celebrities to whom he was suspected of trafficking girls and young women for sex.
Democrats on the committee noted that the Justice Department was itself violating the law, having released only a fraction of the case files it was required to make public more than a month ago.
– ‘White House cover-up’ –
“Donald Trump is leading a White House cover-up right now of the Epstein files, and we all know Epstein himself said Donald Trump was his best friend for over 10 years,” said Robert Garcia, the committee’s top Democrat. “It is shameful, illegal and unconstitutional that the Department of Justice has released one percent of the files.”
Neither Trump nor the Clintons have been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein’s activities. But Republicans say the Democratic couple’s past links to the business tycoon, including Bill Clinton’s use of his private jet in the early 2000s, justify in-person questioning under oath.
In letters refusing to appear in Washington, the Clintons argue that the subpoenas are invalid because they lack a clear legislative purpose. Instead, the couple submitted sworn written statements describing their knowledge of Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence for sex trafficking.
Comer announced that Maxwell had been scheduled to give a deposition on February 9, although he said he expected her to assert her constitutional right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination. Bill Clinton acknowledged flying on Epstein’s plane for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work, but said he never visited his private island. Hillary Clinton said she had no meaningful interactions with Epstein, never flew on his plane, and never visited his island.
The full House vote could expose divisions among Democrats, some of whom privately acknowledge that their party has long argued no one should be beyond scrutiny in efforts to uncover the full scope of Epstein’s crimes. Others fear that advancing the contempt resolutions plays into a partisan strategy to shift attention away from Trump’s own past contacts with Epstein and from criticism that his administration has moved slowly to release all related records.
– Frankie TAGGART
© 2024 AFP
