Clintons refuse to testify in Epstein probe ‘designed to result in our imprisonment’

1 month ago 16

By Stephen Groves

January 14, 2026 — 6.21am

Washington: Former US president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton are refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify in a House committee’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein.

The Clintons, in a letter released on social media early Wednesday (AEDT), slammed the House Oversight probe as “legally invalid” even as Republican lawmakers prepared contempt of Congress proceedings against them.

The Clintons wrote that the chair of the House Oversight Committee, Republican Representative James Comer, is on the cusp of a process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment”.

“We will forcefully defend ourselves,” wrote the Clintons, who are Democrats.

They accused Comer of allowing other former officials to provide written statements about Epstein to the committee, while selectively enforcing subpoenas against them.

The intensifying clash adds another dimension to the fight over Epstein, raising new questions about the limits of congressional power to compel testimony. It also comes when Republicans are grappling with the Justice Department’s delayed release of the Epstein files after a bipartisan push for their release.

Comer said he would begin contempt of Congress proceedings next week. It potentially starts a complicated and politically messy process that Congress has rarely reached for and could result in prosecution from the Justice Department.

“No one’s accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. We just have questions,” Comer told reporters after Bill Clinton did not show up for a scheduled deposition at House offices on Tuesday, Washington time.

He added, “Anyone would admit they spent a lot of time together.”

Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein but had a well-documented friendship with the wealthy financier throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Clinton together in an undated image released last year as part of the so-called Epstein files.

Republicans have zeroed in on that relationship as they wrestle with demands for a full accounting of Epstein’s wrongdoing.

Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. He killed himself in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial.

“We have tried to give you the little information we have. We’ve done so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” the Clintons wrote in the letter.

Multiple former presidents have voluntarily testified before Congress, but none has been compelled to do so. That history was invoked by President Donald Trump in 2022, between his first and second terms, when he faced a subpoena by the House committee investigating the deadly January 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters at the US Capitol.

Trump’s lawyers cited decades of legal precedent they said shielded an ex-president from being ordered to appear before Congress. The committee ultimately withdrew its subpoena.

Comer also indicated that the Oversight committee would not attempt to compel testimony from Trump about Epstein, saying that it could not force a sitting president to testify.

Trump, a Republican, also had a well-documented friendship with Epstein. He has said he cut off that relationship before Epstein was accused of sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, the congressional co-sponsors of legislation that forced the public release of investigative documents in the sex-trafficking probe of Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell asked a New York judge in a letter to appoint a neutral expert to oversee release of the materials. The letter, dated January 8, was delivered to the judge on Monday night, New York time.

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, told US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer they had “urgent and grave concerns” that the Justice Department has failed to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the files to be released last month.

They said they believed “criminal violations have taken place” in the release process.

Engelmayer presides over the Maxwell case. Maxwell, a former Epstein girlfriend, is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction for recruiting girls and women to be abused by Epstein and for sometimes joining in the abuse.

Last month, Maxwell sought to set aside her conviction, saying new evidence had emerged proving constitutional violations spoiled her trial.

Justice Department officials, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, have said the files’ release was slowed by redactions required to protect the identities of abuse victims.

In their letter, Khanna and Massie wrote that the Department of Justice’s release of 12,000 documents out of more than 2 million documents being reviewed was a “flagrant violation” of the law’s release requirements and had caused “serious trauma to survivors”.

“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” the congressmen said as they asked for the appointment of an independent monitor to ensure all documents and electronically stored information are immediately made public.

They also recommended that a court-appointed monitor be given authority to notify and prepare reports about the true nature and extent of the document production and whether improper redactions or conduct have taken place.

Engelmayer directed the Justice Department and Maxwell, if she wishes, to respond to the allegations from the congressmen by Friday.

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