Hillary Clinton is calling for a public hearing as part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The former U.S. secretary of state and her husband, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, have agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 26 and 27. It will mark the first time that lawmakers have compelled a former president to testify.
Clinton made the demand for a public hearing in a pair of posts on social media on Thursday, challenging Oversight Committee chairman James Comer to allow the public to watch the Clintons’ testimony live.
“For six months, we engaged Republicans on the Oversight Committee in good faith. We told them what we know, under oath,” Clinton wrote on X. “They ignored all of it. They moved the goalposts and turned accountability into an exercise in distraction.”
“So let’s stop the games. If you want this fight, @RepJamesComer, let’s have it—in public. You love to talk about transparency. There’s nothing more transparent than a public hearing, cameras on. We will be there,” she added.
Comer said the Epstein investigation “is not dictated by the Clintons.”
“Depositions are on video for all to see. If the Clintons want a hearing, it can be after depositions,” he wrote on X.
In response to Clinton’s comments, the GOP Oversight Committee said that “The Clintons are going to Clinton and try to spin the facts. On Tuesday, at the eleventh hour, their lawyers, Jonathan Skladany and Ashley Callen, said their clients accepted the terms of the depositions.”
“These terms are no different than any other deposition we have held on this case—even with Republicans like former AG Bill Barr and Secretary Alex Acosta. Then they pretended that we were moving the goalpost when they received, along with the subpoenas, the House deposition guidance that explicitly mentions video recordings,” the post added.
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The GOP Oversight Committee said it is “not going to debate the meaning of the word ‘is.'”
“We are going to get answers for the American people. The full truth. The buck stops here,” the post read, adding email correspondence between the Clintons’ lawyers and the GOP Oversight Committee.
Clinton’s comments come three weeks after she and her husband refused to testify in the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein inquiry and skipped their depositions.
“Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences,” the Clintons wrote to Comer, according to a letter first reported by the New York Times.
“For us, now is that time.”
The couple were set to testify starting Jan. 13 in the U.S. Congress investigation, and Republicans warned they could possibly face contempt charges if they failed to appear.
The Clintons also addressed the likelihood of the committee voting to hold them in contempt.
“We expect you will direct your committee to seek to hold us in contempt,” they wrote. “You will say it is not our decision to make. But we have made it. Now you have to make yours.”
In the letter, released on social media, the Clintons told Comer he’s on the cusp of a process “literally designed to result in our imprisonment.”
After the letter was published, the House Oversight Committee announced that it would seek to hold Bill Clinton in contempt after he failed to appear for his deposition.
“As a result of Bill Clinton not showing up for his lawful subpoena, which again was voted unanimously by the committee in a bipartisan manner, we will move next week in the House Oversight Committee markup to hold former President Clinton in contempt of Congress,” Comer told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“No one’s accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing. We just have questions,” Comer said after Bill Clinton did not show up for a scheduled deposition at House offices.
“Anyone would admit they spent a lot of time together.”
Bill Clinton has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein but had a well-documented friendship with the wealthy financier throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Republicans have zeroed in on that relationship as they try to wrestle control over demands for a full accounting of Epstein’s wrongdoing.
In December 2025, Comer threatened to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against the Clintons if they refused to appear for depositions as part of the committee’s investigation into Epstein.
In a statement on Dec. 12, Comer said the Clintons had “delayed, obstructed, and largely ignored the Committee staff’s efforts to schedule their testimony” for several months. He said the committee would begin proceedings to try to force them to testify if they didn’t appear the following week or schedule an appearance in January.
His statement came hours after Democrats on the committee released dozens of photos they had received from Epstein’s estate, including images of Clinton.
The House Oversight Committee issued numerous subpoenas last August, with nearly a dozen subpoenas issued to high-profile figures, seeking information and files related to Epstein, following calls for more transparency in the case.
That’s when the Clintons first received their subpoena for testimony, as well as a slew of former attorneys general and FBI directors.
— With files from The Associated Press
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