Hillary Clinton faces off with House lawmakers in Epstein probe

(CNN) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is facing off with the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door interview as part of the panel’s investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Thursday’s deposition in Chappaqua, New York, is the culmination of a vigorous fight by both the former secretary of state and former Democratic President Bill Clinton over testifying in what they denounced as a Republican plot against them.

Clinton has said she cannot recall ever meeting Epstein and only interacted with his former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, a handful of times. Republicans, however, insist her testimony is vital to their probe, while Democrats have argued their colleagues’ fixation on the former secretary of state is purely political.

“I want everybody treated the same way. That’s not true for my husband and me because other witnesses were asked to testify. They gave written statements under oath. We offered that,” she told the BBC in an interview earlier this month. “Why do they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President (Donald) Trump. This is not complicated.”

Clinton is being interviewed the day before her husband’s appearance, which will be the first time a former president has been forced to testify in a congressional probe. The pair of interviews will be videotaped and transcribed, and lawmakers from both parties will have the opportunity to ask questions.

The Clintons only agreed to comply with their subpoenas for closed-door depositions after the House had moved toward a bipartisan vote to hold them in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear as scheduled.

The former secretary of state was accompanied by her attorneys, who have been working through painstaking details of what areas could be covered during questioning.

The location for the depositions, the Clintons’ hometown of Chappaqua, was negotiated between Kendall and Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in hopes of avoiding the indignity and precedent-setting move of summoning a former president to Capitol Hill for questioning.

To prepare, the Clintons in recent days have hunkered down to not only refresh their memories about the Epstein years, but to prepare to counter potentially hostile congressional investigators. Their separate appearances speak to the differences in information the two could offer to the committee.

The Clintons and members of the House Oversight Committee have agreed to five topic areas for the depositions, a person familiar with the agreement told CNN. They are:

• alleged mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation into Epstein and Maxwell;
• the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Epstein’s 2019 death;
• the ways the federal government could effectively combat sex-trafficking rings;
• how Epstein and Maxwell sought to curry favor to protect their illegal activities;
• and potential violations of ethics rules related to elected officials.

Initially, the Clintons wanted their subpoenas for depositions to be waived for sworn statements under oath, an accommodation that Comer granted to several other witnesses in the investigation. But the Oversight Committee chairman wanted them to appear on his terms.

Clinton attorneys and the Republican-led panel negotiated behind the scenes for months, through email exchanges, letters and phone calls to try and find an off-ramp.

When the Clintons did not appear for their scheduled depositions in January, Comer scheduled a vote to hold the pair in criminal contempt.

“Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time,” the Clintons wrote in January when they announced they would not be appearing for their in-person scheduled depositions.

Triple the number of Democrats voted to hold the former president in contempt compared to the former first lady, but the bipartisan votes took House Democratic leadership by surprise.

Bill Clinton has never been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing related to Epstein, and a spokesperson has repeatedly said he cut ties before Epstein’s arrest on federal charges in 2019 and was unaware of any crimes.

A CNN review showed the former president traveled on Epstein’s private plane at least 16 times, and he was pictured in Epstein case files released by the Justice Department with women in a jacuzzi, as well as with Maxwell.

Survivors of Epstein’s abuse and lawyers representing them told CNN that they believe it is important for the Clintons, and especially the former president, to testify. In interviews, they stressed that the presence of an individual in the Epstein files and their cooperation with Congress does not indicate wrongdoing.

In the current political environment, victims of Epstein hold far more sway with many Democratic lawmakers than a sense of loyalty to the Clintons. More than 40 current House Democrats were born in 1980 or later, giving them different memories of Bill Clinton’s presidency than party leaders who were in Washington when he ended 12 years of Republican control of the White House.

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CNN’s MJ Lee and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.