Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed on Monday to comply with a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee and testify as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawyers for the Clintons emailed the committee’s chair, Rep. James Comer, Monday evening to say that the couple would sit for interviews. If the testimony does happen, it will be one of only a few times a former president has been called before Congress.
The Clintons have spent months fighting the panel’s subpoena.
Oversight Committee Republicans, along with the support of a handful of Democrats, voted on Jan. 21 to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress for failing to appear before the committee, prompting a last-ditch effort to negotiate terms.
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In a letter on Saturday to Comer, which was obtained by The New York Times, Bill Clinton’s lawyer asked that the former president only appear for a four-hour transcribed interview. In the case of Hillary Clinton, lawyers argued that because she never met or spoke with Epstein, she should be allowed to submit a sworn declaration in place of testimony.
Comer rejected the offer in a response to the attorneys, calling it “unreasonable” and claiming that the requests amounted to special privileges.
“The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again and they have provided no dates for their depositions,” Comer said in a statement to NOTUS. “The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.”
A former president has never testified before Congress for a criminal case of this magnitude.
President Donald Trump was successful in avoiding answering his 2022 subpoena by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, ultimately getting it withdrawn through litigation.
“Long-held precedent and practice maintain that separation of powers prohibits Congress from compelling a President to testify before it,” Trump’s attorney argued at the time.
The House Rules Committee was scheduled to hold a vote Monday to approve the contempt charges against the Clintons. But the panel’s chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx, moved to postpone the vote, saying that given the Clintons’ agreement to testify, she would grant more time for the Oversight Committee and the Clintons to agree to terms.
“Obviously there’s a lot of ongoing discussions and negotiations,” Foxx said Monday night after hours of debate. “I think we need more time to clarify with the Clintons what they are actually agreeing to. Accordingly, the committee will postpone further consideration of the contempt. However, should there not be substantial compliance and agreement overnight, the committee will return to continue the hearing on the contempt.”
Speaking from Capitol Hill on Monday, the Oversight Committee’s ranking member, Rep. Robert Garcia, said that for the contempt vote not to be withdrawn now that the Clintons have accepted the committee’s terms “would be insane.”
“That would be unprecedented,” Garcia said. “It would be clearly a demonstration that Comer is actually not interested in hearing from the Clintons, that he’s only interested in political games and not actually getting the truth, and I think that would be a huge disservice to the survivors and to the investigation.”
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