The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday voted to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify as part of the panel’s probe into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The resolution, passed after a day of heated debate, will now go before the full House for a vote.
“The Clintons’ testimony is critical to understanding Epstein’s sex trafficking network and the ways he sought to curry favor and influence to shield himself from scrutiny,” the committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer, said during the contempt debate. “The response we received was not cooperation, but defiance, marked by repeated delays, excuses and obstruction.”
The committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August following the Justice Department’s release of documents that heavily featured former President Bill Clinton in various photographs with Epstein. The Clintons responded to the committee’s subpoena with a joint statement explaining their refusal to testify.
Oversight committee members ultimately voted on Wednesday to issue contempt charges against the Clintons for their refusal to comply with its subpoena. The committee voted 34-8 to hold Bill Clinton in contempt, with two voting present; and 28-15, with one voting present, to hold former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt.
Democratic Reps. Maxwell Frost, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Summer Lee, Stephen Lynch, Ayanna Pressley, Emily Randall, Lateefah Simon, Melanie Stansbury and Rashida Tlaib joined Republicans in approving the contempt charge for Bill Clinton.
Significantly fewer Democrats voted for the contempt resolution against Hillary Clinton — only Reps. Lee, Stansbury and Tlaib.
The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.
During the committee’s debate on contempt charges, Republicans voted down two Democratic amendments to enforce the Clinton subpoenas with a civil contempt charge instead of a criminal one, and to bring similar contempt charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to meet the committee’s deadline to release the Epstein files.
“If you’re wondering why Pam Bondi hasn’t been held accountable for defying our lawful subpoena, Oversight Republicans just REFUSED to hold her in contempt,” Ranking Member Robert Garcia posted to X after Republicans voted against the amendments. “They’re more interested in pursuing political enemies and bending the knee to Trump than getting justice for survivors.”
During the panel’s markup, Comer also announced Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, will sit for a virtual deposition on Feb. 9. However, in a Tuesday letter to Comer, Maxwell’s attorneys indicated she would plead the Fifth Amendment and decline to cooperate with lawmakers’ questioning.
“Put plainly, proceeding under these circumstances would serve no other purpose than pure political theater and a complete waste of taxpayer monies,” the attorneys wrote. “The Committee would obtain no testimony, no answers, and no new facts.”
They added that Maxwell would testify in a public forum if she were to receive the presidential pardon she’s been vying for.
The House in November forced a full release of all of the government’s files related to Epstein, but has only received heavily redacted versions of a limited number of documents. The DOJ, which has released less than 1% of all records related to the case, earlier this month revealed it has more than two million potential documents relating to Epstein still awaiting review.
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