OPINION:
After refusing a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and only after it became clear that the committee, which includes several Democratic members, would vote to hold them in contempt of Congress, Bill and Hillary Clinton announced that they would give sworn depositions concerning what they know about the late Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
The Clintons will be put under oath, as is the usual practice with such depositions. Given their record of shading the truth and telling outright lies, why would anyone believe what they say?
Here are just a few examples of what is known about the two of them.
First, Bill. Who can forget that scene in the White House after the story broke about Monica Lewinsky? With Hillary standing by her man, Mr. Clinton pointed his index finger for emphasis and said: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”
Mr. Clinton made that statement while he was under investigation for perjury, leading to his impeachment by the House, but his acquittal in the Senate. He later admitted that the statement about Ms. Lewinsky was false. His many defenders, including Cabinet members, made excuses for him, only to be humiliated when the truth emerged.
During his Aug. 17, 1998, grand jury testimony regarding the Lewinsky scandal, Mr. Clinton engaged in a parsing of words that made me laugh. In videotaped testimony, he was asked to justify his earlier claim that there had been no sexual relationship between him and Ms. Lewinsky. Mr. Clinton responded: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” This was the kind of stuff that earned him the title “Slick Willie.”
Remember Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey and others who accused Mr. Clinton of rape, sexual harassment and other inappropriate conduct? Mr. Clinton denied all the charges while his supporters tried to smear the women. Of the accusers, James Carville is now famously reported to have said: “Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park and there’s no telling what you will find.”
“Bimbo eruptions” was a phrase coined by Betsey Wright, a deputy chair of Mr. Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Its purpose was to attack Mr. Clinton’s female accusers. Mrs. Clinton joined the effort. So much for female solidarity.
There’s plenty more on the list of lies told by Bill Clinton dating back to his time as Arkansas attorney general and governor, but let’s move on to Hillary Clinton.
During her 2008 presidential campaign, the former first lady claimed she landed in Tuzla, Bosnia, in 1996 “under sniper fire” and had to “run with our heads down.” Video footage and news reports revealed she was greeted on the tarmac by a group of officials and an 8-year-old girl, with no immediate sign of sniper fire. She later acknowledged that she “misspoke” and that it was a “false memory.”
Then there was the business about her emails on government and private servers while she was secretary of state. During and after her time in that office, Mrs. Clinton made several claims regarding her use of a private email server for official business, many of which were contradicted by an FBI investigation.
“I never received nor sent any material that was marked as classified,” she testified. Yet the FBI investigation found that 110 emails in 52 chains contained classified information when they were sent or received, some at the highest levels, even if they were not explicitly marked as classified when sent on her server.
FBI Director James B. Comey called her handling of classified information “extremely careless.”
Space does not permit listing more of the Clintons’ lies and dissembling, but anyone can find them with a Google search. If the Clintons lie again or parse words before the House oversight committee, will there be consequences? Those are things the Clintons have mostly avoided throughout their public careers and private lives.
• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).
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