Former President Bill Clinton said he “did nothing wrong” and had “no idea of the crimes” committed by financier Jeffrey Epstein as he began a deposition Friday with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Chappaqua, New York.
In a prepared opening statement shared publicly, Clinton said:
“Though my brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and though I never witnessed during our interactions any indication of what was truly going on, I am here to offer what little I know so that it might prevent anything like this from ever happening again.”
He added that he had “no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing” and “saw nothing that ever gave me pause,” concluding:
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”
The deposition comes after Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed to testify following months of negotiations and the possibility of being held in contempt of Congress for defying subpoenas.
Hillary Clinton’s Testimony
Hillary Clinton sat for an hours-long deposition the day before, telling lawmakers she did not recall ever meeting Epstein, described Ghislaine Maxwell as only a casual acquaintance, and said she had no knowledge of any criminal activity.
Bill Clinton criticized the committee’s decision to call his wife:
“But before we start, I have to get personal. You made Hillary come in. She had nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Nothing,” he said. “Whether you subpoenaed 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right.”
Past Association With Epstein
Clinton acknowledged a documented friendship with Epstein dating from the 1990s through the early 2000s. Epstein visited the White House during Clinton’s presidency, and Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane multiple times. Clinton has said he never visited Epstein’s private island.
Addressing those connections, Clinton said:
“As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing—I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
He continued:
“No matter how many photos you show me, I have two things at the end of the day matter more than your interpretation of those 20-year-old photos. I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see. I know what I did, and more importantly, what I didn’t do.”
Clinton emphasized that his association with Epstein ended years before Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea for procuring a minor for prostitution.
“We are only here because he hid it from everyone so well for so long. And by the time it came to light with his 2008 guilty plea, I had long stopped associating with him,” he said.
Congressional Context
Committee Chair James Comer said Hillary Clinton’s testimony would shape questioning of the former president:
“Yesterday, Ms. Clinton deferred a lot of questions to her husband today. There were at least a dozen times when she said, ‘You’ll have to ask my husband that, I can’t answer that,’” Comer said ahead of the deposition.
Some Democrats warned that compelling a former president to testify could set a precedent. Oversight ranking member Robert Garcia and others have suggested that the same standard could apply to President Donald Trump in future inquiries.
Rep. Ro Khanna said:
“Before this, we had the Trump rule… Now we have the Clinton rule, which is that presidents and their families have to testify when Congress issues a subpoena.”
Democrats have called for Trump to testify regarding documents they allege are missing from disclosures by the U.S. Department of Justice related to Epstein.
Subpoena Dispute
The committee voted last year on a bipartisan basis to subpoena the Clintons and other former officials. Negotiations over the terms of testimony continued for months. In January, nine Democrats joined Republicans in voting to hold Bill Clinton in contempt of Congress for declining to sit for a deposition, while three Democrats supported contempt proceedings against Hillary Clinton.
During her testimony, Hillary Clinton also objected to Rep. Lauren Boebert sharing a photo from the deposition in violation of agreed rules and raised concerns about lawmakers asking questions related to UFOs and conspiracy theories.
