Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to appear behind closed doors before a congressional committee this week as part of a probe into the late Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender whose death in 2019 ended a pending federal sex-trafficking prosecution.
The closed-door deposition is scheduled to take place on Thursday in Chappaqua, New York, near the Clintons' principal residence. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, is expected to give testimony to the same House Oversight Committee the following day.
Hillary Clinton has said she does not recall ever meeting Epstein and has stated she has no personal knowledge of his crimes. She has also accused the Republican-controlled committee of attempting to divert attention from President Donald Trump’s connections to Epstein. That accusation has come as the committee, led by Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, presses forward with interviews of individuals who might shed light on Epstein’s interactions with prominent public figures.
Comer has rejected the suggestion that the inquiry is solely partisan, noting that members of the Democratic caucus pushed for the Clintons to testify. "No one is accusing at this moment the Clintons of any wrongdoing," he said, while describing the committee’s goals as learning whether there were any interactions between Hillary Clinton and Epstein, the nature of Epstein’s involvement with the Clintons’ foundation activities, and any ties she might have had to Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Epstein who was later jailed.
The committee’s top Democrat, Representative Robert Garcia of California, urged that President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also be called to testify. Garcia noted Lutnick has acknowledged visiting Epstein’s private island years after he says he broke ties with the financier. Comer said that transcripts of the interviews with the Clintons will be released publicly.
A spokesperson for the Clintons did not respond to a request for comment ahead of the scheduled depositions.
Many details about Hillary Clinton’s ties to Epstein remain unclear. Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times in the early 2000s after leaving the White House. He has denied any wrongdoing and has expressed regret over the association. According to Comer, Epstein visited the White House 17 times during the Clinton administration.
The probe’s scope also references President Trump’s past social interactions with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s, prior to Trump’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. Comer said the evidence the committee has collected does not implicate Trump in Epstein’s crimes.
The Justice Department has been complying with a congressional law by releasing a large volume of Epstein-related materials. Over recent months it has made available more than 3 million pages of documents tied to Epstein. The department highlighted some photographs of Bill Clinton among the released records, while the broader corpus has disclosed Epstein’s connections to a long list of business and political leaders, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Materials from the document releases have also led to inquiries abroad, prompting criminal investigations in some countries into figures connected to Epstein, including Britain's Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Duke of York, among others.
The committee’s questioning of the Clintons represents a continuation of a months-long effort to map Epstein’s network and to understand what interactions high-profile individuals had with him. The closed-door format for these depositions means the public will initially be limited to committee summaries and, eventually, transcripts that Chairman Comer has said will be published.
How the testimony will affect the broader political landscape - and whether it prompts further inquiries into other public figures mentioned in the documents - will depend on what the committee uncovers and chooses to make public in the coming weeks.