By STEPHEN GROVES
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 seem for depositions as a part of the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, stated 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 stated the committee would start proceedings to attempt to pressure 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 photographs they’d acquired from Epstein’s property, together with pictures of Clinton and President Donald Trump.
Contempt is one among U.S. lawmakers’ politically messiest and, till latest years, least-used powers. However the way in which 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 various high-powered individuals related to Epstein, a rich financier, earlier than the felony investigation towards him in Florida grew to become public twenty years in the past. Clinton has by no means been accused of wrongdoing by any of the ladies who say Epstein abused them.
Considered one of 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 stated in a deposition that these issues hadn’t truly occurred and had been errors by the reporter. Clinton has beforehand stated by means of 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.
