WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican chair of the Home Oversight Committee threatened Friday to start contempt of Congress proceedings towards former President Invoice Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the event that they refuse to look for depositions as a part of the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, mentioned in a press release late Friday that the Clintons had “delayed, obstructed, and largely ignored the Committee workers’s efforts to schedule their testimony” for a number of months and mentioned the committee would start proceedings to attempt to drive them to testify in the event that they don’t seem subsequent week or schedule an look in January.
Comer’s assertion got here simply hours after Democrats on the committee had launched dozens of pictures that they had acquired from Epstein’s property, together with pictures of Clinton and President Donald Trump.
Contempt is one in all U.S. lawmakers’ politically messiest and, till current years, least-used powers. However the best way Congress has dealt with calls for for disclosure within the investigation into Epstein has taken on new political significance because the Trump administration faces a deadline subsequent week to launch the Division of Justice’s case information on the late financier.
Invoice Clinton was amongst quite a few high-powered folks linked to Epstein, a rich financier, earlier than the felony investigation towards him in Florida grew to become public 20 years in the past. Clinton has by no means been accused of wrongdoing by any of the ladies who say Epstein abused them.
One among Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, as soon as gave a newspaper interview through which she described driving in a helicopter with Clinton and flirting with Trump, however she later mentioned in a deposition that these issues hadn’t really occurred and had been errors by the reporter. Clinton has beforehand mentioned by a spokesperson that whereas he traveled on Epstein’s jet, he by no means visited his houses and had no data of his crimes.
A number of former presidents have voluntarily testified earlier than Congress, however none has been compelled to take action. That historical past was invoked by Trump in 2022, between his first and second phrases, when he confronted a subpoena by the Home committee investigating the lethal Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
