Former President Bill Clinton on Friday told members of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee investigating his ties to Jeffrey Epstein that "I saw nothing" and "did nothing wrong," and criticized the panel for making his wife sit for a deposition.
"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," Clinton said of Epstein in his opening statement to the panel, which he posted on X.
The former president is being deposed in a closed-door setting one day after the committee questioned his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for around six hours about what she knew about the convicted sex offender Epstein and co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
While he acknowledged knowing and traveling with Epstein, he said his wife had "nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein" and "no memory of even meeting him."
"Whether you subpoena 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right," he wrote.
His statement concluded, “Since I am under oath, I will not falsely state that I am looking forward to your questions. But I am ready to answer them to the best of my abilities, consistent with the facts as I know them: the legitimate, the logical and even the outlandish."
Clinton is the first sitting or former president to testify before members of Congress in more than 40 years.
Files related to the Epstein probes that have been released to date include numerous pictures of Bill Clinton with Epstein and Maxwell. In some of the photos, Bill Clinton is shown in a hot tub, swimming in a pool with Maxwell and sitting at a table with a woman sitting on his leg.
The pictures are undated, and it’s unclear where they were taken. None suggests any wrongdoing.
During the deposition, Clinton told lawmakers he did not know the woman he was pictured with in a jacuzzi in the Justice Department's release of its files related to Epstein, according to a person in the room for his deposition. Clinton said he did not have sex with the woman, when asked during his deposition. CNN was first to report this detail. The former president also repeatedly said during his deposition that he never visited Jeffrey Epstein’s island.
“It’s a historical day for the United States Congress,” Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters before the deposition. "No one is accusing anyone of any wrongdoing, but I think the American people have a lot of questions and our House Oversight Committee is committed to getting answers."
Comer said Thursday that he expected the former president's deposition to take "even longer" than his wife's testimony. The meeting is taking place in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons have a house. Comer said he expects a video and transcript of the Hillary Clinton deposition to be made public sometime Friday or Saturday, and would release the Bill Clinton video and transcript as "quickly" as possible.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Friday that "we have real questions that deserve serious answers" from the former president, but reiterated his calls for the panel to question President Donald Trump as well.
The Clinton interview began around 11 a.m. ET, according to a person familiar. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., told reporters about an hour into the deposition that he was "being very cooperative" and "answering all of our questions."
Trump was the subject of some of the questions in the interview, lawmakers said. Comer told reporters Clinton said that Trump "has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved" with Epstein.
Garcia said that Comer's remarks were "not an accurate description" of the questioning. He said Clinton "did bring up some additional information about some discussions with President Trump," and a full record "brings up some very important new questions about comments that President Trump has actually said in the past." He did not elaborate but called for the full transcript to be released.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said on X that Clinton, during the deposition, said Trump told him that his falling out with Epstein was over a "land dispute." Trump has repeatedly said that he and Epstein stopped being friends because of Epstein’s behavior.
The Clintons told the committee in sworn declarations last month that they had “no personal knowledge” of any “criminal activities” by Epstein or Maxwell.
Hillary Clinton has said she has no recollection of ever having met Epstein, but Bill Clinton has acknowledged he flew on the his plane in 2002 and 2003 while he was traveling internationally for the Clinton Foundation. In his declaration, Bill Clinton said Epstein "offered a plane that was big enough to accommodate me, my staff and my U.S. Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation's philanthropic work."
