“I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
Former President Bill Clinton appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Friday for a closed-door deposition about his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. In an opening statement released on social media, Clinton said he had “no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing.”
Clinton, who appears in numerous photos released as part of the Epstein files and flew on the financier’s jet numerous times, said, “I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing. No matter how many photos you show me, I have two things that at the end of the day matter more than your interpretation of those 20-year-old photos. I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see. I know what I did, and more importantly, what I didn’t do. I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong.”
“As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing—I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
He said that even with “20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause. We are only here because he hit it from everyone so well for so long. And by the time it came to light with his 2008 guilty plea, I had long stopped associating with him.”
He said he’d frequently say “that I don’t recall,” admitting that this “might be unsatisfying” for lawmakers. “But I’m not going to say something I’m not sure of. This was all a long time ago. And I am bound by my oath not to speculate, or to guess.” He later added, “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 to the best of my abilities, consistent with the facts as I know them: the legitimate, the logical, and even the outlandish.”
Chairman James Comer said ahead of the deposition that took place in New York that Clinton had flown on Epstein’s plane at least 27 times, and that Epstein visited the Clinton White House at least 17 times.
Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, appeared before the committee on Thursday morning. In her opening statement, she claimed that Republican lawmakers called her to testify in order to “distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.” She added, “If this Committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.”