Bill Clinton to face grilling on significant Epstein ties
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Former US president Bill Clinton features throughout the latest Epstein files disclosures.
PHOTO: REUTERS
CHAPPAQUA, United States – Former US president Bill Clinton will be grilled by a Congressional panel on Feb 27 on his well-documented links to Jeffrey Epstein, as the Democrats seek to shift focus onto US President Donald Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender.
Mr Clinton features prominently throughout the latest Epstein files disclosures, with the former US 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 Mr Clinton has not been accused of a crime or formally investigated.
He follows his wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who testified on Feb 26
“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 are being held behind closed doors even though the Clintons 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 associated 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 the light of the Justice Department’s disclosures of millions of new documents related to its investigation of him.
Mrs Clinton 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
Mrs 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”.
She added: “Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”
The Democrats say the investigation is being weaponised to attack Mr Trump’s political opponents rather than to conduct legitimate oversight.
Mr 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, Mr Clinton is pictured swimming alongside a dark-haired woman who appears to be Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Mr Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane several times in the early 2000s for Clinton Foundation-related humanitarian work.
Mr David Markus, an attorney for Maxwell, said recently that Mr Clinton and Mr 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.
Republican committee chair James Comer said at the conclusion of Mrs Clinton’s appearance that lawmakers had “a lot of questions for her husband tomorrow”. AFP
