Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Hillary Clinton accused Republican lawmakers of engaging in “partisan political theatre” and a “cover-up” on Thursday, as she testified before lawmakers investigating the US government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Clinton, the former secretary of state, and her husband, the former president Bill Clinton, earlier this month agreed to testify in the probe after Republicans on the House oversight committee threatened to hold the couple in contempt of Congress.
But Hillary Clinton pulled no punches on Thursday as she appeared for a closed-door deposition with lawmakers in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons now live. Bill Clinton was scheduled to provide his own deposition on Friday.
In a blistering opening statement later posted to social media, Hillary Clinton accused House Republicans of engaging in “partisan political theatre” in an “abdication of duty and an insult to the American people.”
Clinton, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 2016, said she did not have information regarding federal investigations into Epstein or his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
The former secretary of state said she had “no idea” about Epstein’s or Maxwell’s criminal activities and did not “recall ever encountering” the late convicted sex offender, who was found dead in his jail cell awaiting trial in 2019.
Clinton said Republican lawmakers had made “little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files” and were part of an “institutional failure . . . designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors, as well as the public”.
“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President [Donald] Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” Clinton added.
She also called on the committee to “get to the bottom” of allegations the justice department withheld files linked to Epstein in which “a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes”.
Congress last year passed a law that required the Department of Justice to release all unclassified material in the Epstein case. However, Democratic lawmakers have launched an investigation into allegations that the DoJ withheld information about a minor who accused Trump of sexual abuse, after a report from National Public Radio.
Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, on Wednesday sent US attorney-general Pam Bondi a letter asking her to explain the grounds for allegedly withholding material linked to Trump and to disclose whether the president was being investigated for sexual abuse.
Bondi told a congressional committee earlier this month there was “no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime”.
The attorney-general has come under fire for not meeting Epstein’s victims and for the DoJ initially botching redactions that in some cases revealed victims’ names.
Bondi has said she was “deeply sorry for what any victim . . . has been through” and that “any accusations of criminal wrongdoing will be taken seriously and investigated”.
The DoJ and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Hillary Clinton’s statement.
The DoJ has said that Democrats on the oversight committee “should stop misleading the public” and that all Epstein documents “have been produced” unless the material was a duplicate, privileged or part of a federal investigation, according to a post on X.