Hillary Clinton testifies she has no information on Epstein's crimes

“I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein,” Hillary Clinton said in an opening statement she shared on social media.

The closed-door deposition concluded Thursday after more than six hours.

The closed-door depositions in the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, a typically quiet hamlet north of New York City, came after months of tense back-and-forth between the former high-powered Democratic couple and the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee. It will be the first time that a former president has been forced to testify before Congress.

Yet the demand for a reckoning over Epstein's abuse of underage girls has become a near-unstoppable force on Capitol Hill and beyond.

President Donald Trump, a Republican who expressed regret that the Clintons are being forced to testify, bowed last year to pressure to release case files on Epstein, who authorities say killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.

The Clintons, too, agreed to testify after their offers of sworn statements were rebuffed by the Oversight panel and its chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., threatened criminal contempt of Congress charges against them.

"Like every decent person," Hillary Clinton added in her opening statement, "I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes."

She previously said her husband flew with Epstein for charitable trips but that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein. She also interacted with Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and confidant, at conferences hosted by the Clinton Foundation.

Maxwell, a British socialite, also attended the 2010 wedding of their daughter, Chelsea Clinton.

As she exited the event center where the deposition was held, Hillary Clinton told reporters that Maxwell came to the wedding as a guest of someone else and that she told the committee she only knew Maxwell "as an acquaintance."

During a break in the deposition after several hours, Democratic lawmakers said Hillary Clinton answered every question posed to her.

The testimony came the day after the Justice Department said it will investigate whether it improperly withheld documents from the Epstein files.

Several news organizations reported that some records involving uncorroborated accusations made by a woman against Trump were not among those released to the public.

The announcement followed news reports saying that a massive tranche of records released by the Justice Department did not include several summaries of interviews that the FBI conducted with an unidentified woman who came forward after Epstein's 2019 arrest and claimed to have been sexually assaulted by both Trump and Epstein when she was a minor in the 1980s.

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence on a sex trafficking conviction.

The DOJ said if any document is found to have been improperly withheld and is responsive to the federally enacted law mandating the files' release, "the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law."

Republicans relish chance to question Clintons

Bill Clinton has emerged as a top target for Republicans amid the political struggle over who receives the most scrutiny for their ties to Epstein.

Several photos of the former president were included in the first tranche of Epstein files released by the Department of Justice in January, including a number of him with women whose faces were redacted. Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in his relationship with Epstein.

Comer also pointed to Hillary Clinton's work as secretary of state to address sex trafficking as another reason to insist on her deposition. Clinton defended her work to address sex trafficking around the world, saying that it remained important to help the millions of survivors of sex trafficking.

Hillary Clinton accused Comer of running a one-sided investigation that has failed to hold Trump and other Republican officials to account.

"This institutional failure is designed to protect one political party and one public official," she said.

Yet conspiracy theories, especially on the right, have swirled for years around the Clintons and their connections to Epstein and Maxwell, who claims she was wrongfully convicted.

Hillary Clinton said that one Republican lawmaker asked her a line of questions about "vile, bogus conspiracy theories."

Republicans have long wanted to press the Clintons for answers. The deposition was paused after Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., sent a photo of Hillary Clinton in the private proceeding to a conservative influencer who posted it on social media, violating the committee's rules for depositions.

Democrats said the incident underscored how important it was for there to be a clear public record of the deposition.

Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, said Hillary Clinton, after the incident, repeated her longstanding demand that the deposition be made public, and Democrats called for a video and transcript of the complete proceedings to be released quickly.

Comer described the deposition as a bipartisan effort and said Thursday that it was "very possible" the committee would question Trump's Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was Epstein's neighbor and had several interactions with him.

Under questioning from Democrats this month, Lutnick acknowledged that he met with Epstein twice after the late financier's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a child, reversing his previous claim that he had cut ties with him after 2005.

Dems call for Trump to testify

Democrats, now being led by a new generation of politicians, prioritized transparency around Epstein over defending the former leaders of their party.

Several Democratic lawmakers joined with Republicans on the Oversight panel to advance the contempt of Congress charges against the Clintons last month. 

Garcia also called on Trump to testify in the investigation. He argued that Bill Clinton's appearance sets a precedent that should apply to Trump as well.

"Let's get President Trump in front of our committee to answer the questions that are being asked across this country from survivors," Garcia said.

Comer previously said that the committee can't depose Trump because he is a sitting president.