(Washington) Former US President Bill Clinton refused to appear Tuesday at the Capitol in Washington for a parliamentary hearing on his past links with sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, exposing himself and his wife Hillary to prosecution for obstructing Congress.
Published at
Updated to
“He did not show up today,” regretted James Comer, the Republican head of a powerful committee in the House of Representatives investigating the Epstein affair, to the press.
“No one is accusing Bill Clinton of anything wrong, we just have questions,” added the elected official about the 79-year-old former Democratic president.
His wife Hillary Clinton, former head of diplomacy and presidential candidate lost in 2016 to Donald Trump, was expected at Congress on Wednesday.
But in a letter published Tuesday, the couple announced their refusal to appear at the hearings and claim that the subpoenas issued to them are “legally invalid.”
In this sharp-tongued missive, Bill and Hillary Clinton also criticize the fact that James Comer allowed the commission to cancel the subpoenas of seven other former officials, in exchange for written depositions, while the elected Republican would have refused on several occasions to do the same for the couple.
“We have tried to give you what little information we have. We did it because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” they say.
Transparency
A figure of the New York jet set, Jeffrey Epstein is accused of having sexually exploited more than a thousand young women, including minors.
During his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump promised his base shattering revelations. But the Republican has been reluctant since his return to power to publish the file and has suffered a backlash, including among his supporters.
PHOTO DAVIDOFF STUDIOS PHOTOGRAPHY, GETTY IMAGES ARCHIVES
Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump at the US president’s Mar-A-Lago club in 1997.
In August, as controversy grew over the government’s lack of transparency, the Clintons were subpoenaed before Congress.
“By your own admission, you traveled on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane four times in 2002 and 2003,” stated the summons letter sent to Bill Clinton by James Comer.
The commission will vote next week to begin the procedure to obstruct the prerogatives of Congress against the former president, the Republican official said Tuesday.
Such a procedure would then need to be adopted by a vote in the House before possible prosecution by the Justice Department.
Redacted documents
Bill Clinton, who claimed in 2019 not to have spoken to Jeffrey Epstein for more than a decade, has always denied having any knowledge of his crimes.
Once close to the financier with whom he moved in the same circles, Donald Trump has also always denied having any knowledge of his criminal behavior and claims to have broken up with him well before his legal problems.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Undated photo released by the Justice Department showing former President Bill Clinton with a woman whose face has been obscured
On the other hand, he called in mid-November for an investigation to be carried out into the links between his Democratic predecessor and Jeffrey Epstein.
At the end of December, after months of delay, his government began publishing thousands of photos, videos and texts on the rich financier.
But the entire file has not yet been made public as required by a law promulgated in November, and many published files have been largely redacted, including a document completely blacked out on 119 pages.
In their letter Tuesday, Bill and Hillary Clinton criticized James Comer for not using his powers as a legislative official to “force the Justice Department to follow the law and release all of the Epstein documents, including anything that concerns (them), as (they) have publicly called for.”
