Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, after testifying before House lawmakers as part of a congressional investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein Thursday in Chappaqua, N.Y.
Yuki Iwamura/AP
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Yuki Iwamura/AP
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent more than six hours in a closed-door deposition Thursday, facing questions from the House Oversight Committee. The Republican-led committee subpoenaed Clinton, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to appear in its investigation into convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The former president will take questions Friday from the committee.
In a short press conference following the deposition, Hillary Clinton said she wished the proceedings had been public and that she and her attorneys have asked for transcripts and videos to be available as soon as possible.
“It was disappointing that they refused to hold a public hearing so I wouldn’t have to be out here characterizing it for you,” she told reporters outside the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in New York where the hearing took place. “You could have seen it for yourself. We had asked for that. We think it would have been better for the committee and its efforts to gather whatever information they are seeking.”
Lamenting what she called “repetitive” questioning, Clinton said she would not appear before the committee again, even if the deposition were public.
“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his home, I never went to his offices,” she said. The former president, her husband Bill, did have a friendship with Epstein and photographs of him appear in the Epstein files. Bill Clinton has not be accused of wrongdoing.
Clinton said by the end of the hearing, Republicans were asking her off-topic questions about UFOs and the pizzagate conspiracy theory that falsely claimed some high-profile Democrats were involved in a child sex-trafficiking ring.
In a preview of what lawmakers may hear from former President Bill Clinton Friday, Hillary Clinton said she was confident that Bill Clinton knew nothing about Epstein’s criminal history and that her husband’s relationship with Epstein ended “several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal history came to light.”
She added Epstein was given a sweetheart deal when he was initially charged and convicted in 2008 of soliciting sex from underage girls in Florida.
“I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of people who had contact with him before his criminal pleas in ’08, they did not know what he was doing,” Clinton said, “and I think that that is exactly what my husband will testify to tomorrow.”
Committee Chair, Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer, said he hopes to have the video publicly available within the next 24 hours. The transcript, Comer said, will be published once Clinton’s attorneys approve it, which are the standard rules of a deposition.
Despite a brief interruption shortly after the proceedings started, when Clinton halted the deposition after a photo from inside the room was posted by a conservative influencer on X, the questioning ultimately continued with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Speaking after the deposition, Comer and his fellow Republicans said it was productive and that Clinton answered most of their questions but that it “was a shame” that it took months to get the Clintons to agree to testify.
“I think we learned a lot. There were a lot of questions that we asked that we, you know, weren’t satisfied with the answers that we got, but we will continue to move forward,” Comer said.
Comer said there were a number of times Clinton responded with “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband.” And that is exactly what he plans to do on Friday.
“We have a lot of questions for her husband tomorrow, and I’m confident that deposition will last even longer than this one,” Comer said.
