What to Know
Former President Bill Clinton delivered a sweeping denial of any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes during roughly six hours of closed-door testimony Friday before a House committee investigating the disgraced financier’s political connections.
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said in a statement prepared for delivery at his closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York. “I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see.”
Clinton said he had “no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing” and described their relationship as a “brief acquaintance” that ended years before Epstein’s conduct became public.
Clinton on Friday became the first former American president forced to testify to Congress.
His wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testified before the same panel on Thursday. The former president signaled that some of his answers might frustrate lawmakers, cautioning that he would not speculate about events from decades ago. “You’ll often hear me say that I don’t recall,” he said. “I’m not going to say something I’m not sure of.”
Hillary Clinton told reporters after her own deposition, which she said spanned topics like UFOs and the so-called PizzaGate conspiracy theory, that she is confident her husband knew nothing about Epstein’s crimes.
House Oversight Chair James Comer said the committee planned to question Clinton on flights the former president took on Epstein’s private plane and visits the financier made to the White House during the Clinton presidency. After the hours-long questioning, Comer called it a “very productive deposition.”
“I do think that we picked up some new facts,” Comer added.
Representative Robert Garcia, the panel’s top-ranking Democrat, told reporters during an afternoon break in the questioning that Clinton was “very cooperative” and “answering the questions fairly, to the best of his ability.”
President Donald Trump and his allies have sought to put a spotlight on Epstein’s connections to Democrats, including the Clintons, amid public attention on the sex offender’s ties to the president and his associates, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and former senior adviser Steve Bannon.
Representative Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican and one of the lawmakers on the panel, said earlier that Clinton would “be thoroughly asked about” photographs of him featured in the first tranche of Epstein files released by the Justice Department in December.
Those photos, including one of the former president soaking in a jacuzzi and another swimming with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, garnered significant media attention. Mace said the panel questioned Hillary Clinton about the photos Thursday but she re-directed the questions to her husband.
“Since I am under oath, I will not falsely state that I am looking forward to your questions. But I am ready to answer them,” the former president said in his opening statement.
Garcia told reporters before the deposition began that Democrats “have real questions, questions that deserve serious answers from former President Clinton” but “what we do not want today is a sideshow.”
Bill Clinton took several trips on Epstein’s private plane before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges that included procurement of a minor to engage in prostitution. Epstein also donated $1,000 to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and $20,000 to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 U.S. Senate campaign. A charity controlled by Epstein contributed $25,000 to the Clintons’ private foundation.
In an interview with the BBC in mid-February, Hillary Clinton said her husband had flown on Epstein’s private jet “for his charitable work,” and she didn’t recall ever meeting Epstein. She said she had met Maxwell “on a few occasions.”
Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of recruiting girls for sexual abuse and participating in some of the assaults. She is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Bill Clinton has said that he parted ways with Epstein many years before the financier’s 2019 death in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Authorities ruled the death a suicide.
The Clintons yielded to Republican demands to appear before a House committee investigating Epstein after GOP lawmakers threatened to hold them both in contempt of Congress if they didn’t testify.
The Clintons said they’d offered to send sworn statements to the House committee as others who’d been subpoenaed to testify had done, but the Republican-led panel turned them down.
Democratic lawmakers said the panel should follow the precedent set with Clinton and subpoena Trump to testify under oath.
“President Trump was in the Epstein files almost more than anyone else besides Ghislaine Maxwell,” Garcia told reporters. “Answer our questions. This is not a hoax. He has not been exonerated.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that Trump had been “totally exonerated on anything relating to Epstein” and has “done more for Epstein’s victims than anyone before him.”
Trump has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activities.
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Jamie Tarabay and Myles Miller; Bloomberg News; (TNS) | ©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
