Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she told a House panel Thursday that she knows nothing about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking crimes and was only a casual acquaintance of his accomplice and girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I answered every one of their questions as fully as I could, based on what I knew. I never met Jeffrey Epstein. Never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance, but whatever they asked me, I did my very best to respond,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters after leaving a closed-door deposition at the Performing Arts Center in Chappaqua, New York.
Mrs. Clinton was questioned for hours about her relationship with Epstein and Maxwell and told lawmakers that only her husband could answer some of their questions.
Former President Bill Clinton will answer questions from lawmakers Friday, also in Chappaqua, in what will be an unprecedented congressional deposition of a former commander in chief.
The former first couple agreed to testify privately before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee after they faced a contempt-of-Congress vote that would have likely passed with Democratic support.
Mrs. Clinton wanted to testify in public, but Republicans said a closed-door interview would be more productive.
She told reporters that her husband associated with Epstein prior to the sex offender’s 2008 conviction on soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended years, several years, before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” Mrs. Clinton said.
Republicans who conducted the deposition said Mrs. Clinton frequently deferred to the former president when asked about Epstein, Maxwell and their involvement with the Clinton Global Initiative.
“The number of times that she said I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband was more than a dozen,” said Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican.
Mrs. Clinton told reporters that questions from lawmakers were repetitive and at one point veered into queries about “Pizzagate,” a 2016 conspiracy theory about a pedophile ring run by Democrats.
Mrs. Clinton said she appreciated being able to express to the committee her belief that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election “should be explored” further.
Republicans subpoenaed the couple to find out more about their relationship with Epstein and Maxwell, who lured underage girls to Epstein’s properties. Epstein sexually assaulted them and, according to victims, ordered them to have sex with his powerful friends.
Mr. Clinton had a well-documented friendship with Epstein that included trips aboard his private jet. He is pictured in photographs from the Epstein files, and some of the images show him in proximity to Epstein’s victims. He has denied knowledge of the crimes, has never been accused of wrongdoing and said he cut ties with Epstein by 2006.
Epstein files released by the Justice Department show Maxwell helped launch the Clinton Global Initiative, and photos show she was a guest at Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.
Mrs. Clinton said Maxwell was not personally invited to her daughter’s wedding but came as a guest of someone who received an invitation.
According to the files, Maxwell arranged for a $1 million wire transfer to pay for communications firm Publicis Groupe to stage the Clinton Global Initiative launch.
The Clinton Foundation also accepted a $25,000 donation from a foundation associated with Epstein, lawmakers said.
Some of the Epstein files suggest Epstein met Mrs. Clinton, but she denied it Thursday.
Mrs. Clinton told committee members that they should shift their focus away from her and depose Mr. Trump, a onetime Epstein friend.
Mr. Trump and Epstein were friends into the early 2000s, but Mr. Trump said he cut him off around 2007 after Epstein lured away a female employee from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“If this committee is serious about learning the Truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” Mrs. Clinton said, according to her opening statement.
Mr. Comer justified the inquiry.
Unlike Mr. Trump, who has spoken several times publicly about his past friendship with Epstein, “to my knowledge, the Clintons haven’t answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell,” Mr. Comer said.
Mrs. Clinton’s four-page opening statement reiterated her sworn declaration, which she provided to the panel earlier this year.
“As I stated in my sworn declaration on January 13, I had no idea about their criminal activities, I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein, I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that,” she said.
Mrs. Clinton said the committee has not held accountable those whose names appear the most prominently in the Epstein files, and she pointed out that no Republican lawmaker showed up for the testimony earlier this month of Les Wexner, the billionaire who, for many years, handed over the handling of his finances to Epstein. Republican staff were present for the interview.
“You have held zero public hearings, refused to allow the media to attend them, including today, despite espousing the need for transparency on dozens of occasions,” Mrs. Clinton said in the statement.
The panel has so far released videos and transcripts of the closed-door depositions and will do so when Mrs. Clinton is finished testifying, Mr. Comer said.
Mrs. Clinton said the committee and the Trump administration have also done little to combat human trafficking and that the president continues to withhold some of the Epstein files to protect wealthy and powerful individuals.
She called on the panel to “demand testimony” from Florida and New York prosecutors about their 2008 sweetheart deal that allowed Epstein to plead guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
“If the majority is serious, it would not waste time on fishing expeditions,” she said. “There is too much that needs to be done.”
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Republicans have set “a new precedent” by forcing Mr. Clinton to provide a closed-door deposition about his relationship with Epstein. Now they must also interview Mr. Trump, he said.
“We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight Republicans and Democrats, and that should happen immediately. He is the person that appears almost more than anyone else in the committee, and it needs to happen right now,” said Mr. Garcia.
Democrats say it’s the Republicans and the Trump administration conducting a cover-up. The Justice Department has withheld the disclosure of some of the Epstein files, among them documents that include never-proven allegations by a woman who said Mr. Trump sexually assaulted her when she was a minor.
“The FBI interviewed this witness four times. You do not do that if it is not serious,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari, Arizona Democrat.
They also called on Republicans to summon Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was associated with Epstein both before and after he served jail time on a charge of soliciting prostitution with a minor. Mr. Lutnick had claimed he cut off contact with Epstein earlier than records now indicate.
Mr. Comer said it is “very possible” the committee will seek an interview with Mr. Lutnick.
Mr. Trump, he said, “has answered hundreds, if not thousands of questions from you all about Epstein, and I think he’s been very transparent in releasing the documents.”
Mr. Comer said his panel is “assessing” the 3 million Epstein-related documents released so far and that more may come before the committee.
“We will obviously be moving on to the next phase and bringing more people in for questions,” he said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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