Bill Clinton gives evidence to US committee probing Epstein

Former president Bill Clinton is being questioned (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Former US president Bill Clinton is giving evidence before members of Congress investigating sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, answering for his connections to the disgraced financier from more than two decades ago.

The closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York, marks the first time a former president has been compelled to testify to Congress.

It came a day after Mr Clinton’s wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, sat with lawmakers for her own deposition.

Bill Clinton has also not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Yet lawmakers are grappling with what accountability in the United States looks like at a time when men around the world have been toppled from high-powered posts for maintaining connections with Epstein after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges in Florida for soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.

“Men — and women for that matter — of great power and great wealth from all across the world have been able to get away with a lot of heinous crimes and they haven’t been held accountable and they have not even had to answer questions,” said Republican James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, before the deposition began.

Ms Clinton told lawmakers on Thursday that she had no knowledge of how Epstein had sexually abused underage girls and had no recollection of even meeting him.

But Mr Clinton will have to answer questions on a well-documented relationship with Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even if it was from the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Ms Clinton said on Thursday that she expected her husband to testify that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time they knew each other.

Republicans were relishing the opportunity to scrutinise the former Democratic president under oath.

“No one’s accusing anyone of any wrongdoing but I think the American people have a lot of questions,” Mr Comer said.

Republicans have wanted to question Mr Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.

Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year when several photos of the former president surfaced in the Department of Justice’s first release of case files on Epstein and Maxwell, a British socialite who was convicted of sex trafficking in December 2021 but maintains she is innocent.

Mr Clinton was photographed on a plane seated alongside a woman, whose face is redacted, with his arm around her. Another photo showed Clinton and Maxwell in a pool with another person whose face was redacted.

Epstein also visited the White House several times during Mr Clinton’s presidency, and the pair later made several international trips together for their humanitarian work. Mr Comer claimed the committee has collected evidence that Epstein visited the White House 17 times and that Mr Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane 27 times.

In the lead-up to the deposition, Mr Clinton has insisted he had limited knowledge about Epstein and was unaware of any sexual abuse he committed.

“I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light,” Hillary Clinton said at the conclusion of her deposition on Thursday.

Call for Trump to face questioning

Democrats, who have supported the push to get answers from Mr Clinton, are arguing that it sets a precedent that should also apply to President Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein.

“I think that President Trump needs to man up, get in front of this committee and answer the questions and stop calling this investigation a hoax,” said Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, on Friday.

Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Mr Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Mr Lutnick was a long-time neighbour of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Mr Lutnick and his wife.

The public release of case files showed that Mr Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later. He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012 his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.

“He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,” Mr Garcia said.