Former US president Bill Clinton faces a grilling from a Congressional panel on Friday on his well-documented links to Jeffrey Epstein, as Democrats seek to shift focus onto Donald Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender.
Clinton features prominently throughout the latest Epstein files disclosures, with the former president insisting that he broke ties with him well before the disgraced billionaire’s 2008 conviction for sex offences.
Mere mention in the files released by the US Department of Justice does not imply wrongdoing, and Clinton has not been accused of a crime or formally investigated.
READ ALSO: Bill Gates Admits Affairs But Denies Involvement In Epstein Crimes
He follows his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who testified Thursday, defiantly calling for President Trump — who, like Bill Clinton, had ties with Epstein — to appear before the panel.
“If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes… it would ask (Trump) directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files,” she said in an opening statement published online.
The depositions under oath are being held behind closed doors, with Bill Clinton likening the proceedings to a “kangaroo court.” The couple has called for them to be open and televised.
The grilling comes with greater peril for the former president than for his wife, as he has acknowledged extensive interactions with Epstein, but said he never visited the shady financier’s private Caribbean island.
Epstein mingled with the world’s rich, famous and powerful, and was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14.
He died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while facing trial on sex trafficking charges. His death was ruled a suicide.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is probing those who were linked to Epstein, particularly in light of the Justice Department’s disclosures of millions of new documents related to its investigation of him.
Hillary insisted that she had neither flown on Epstein’s plane nor visited his island.
The Clintons had initially rejected subpoenas ordering them to testify in the panel’s probe, but the Democratic power couple agreed to do so after House Republicans threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress.
– Newly released pictures –
Hillary Clinton said in her opening statement to the panel that it “justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”
“Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”
Democrats say the investigation is being weaponised to attack Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.
Bill Clinton features prominently in the trove of investigative files related to Epstein released by the Justice Department, but has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Previously unseen photographs from the files include one showing the former president reclining in a hot tub, part of the image obscured by a stark black rectangle.
In another, Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.
David Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, said recently that Clinton and Trump are “innocent of any wrongdoing.”
The depositions are being held in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons reside.
Dozens of journalists have converged on the wealthy hamlet, and the Secret Service erected metal barricades around the arts centre where the depositions are happening.
