Former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton are “hunkering down” ahead of their depositions on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein this week, according to a new report.
The media buzz around redacted government files related to Epstein and their subsequent release has brought fresh scrutiny to those who were in or suspected of being in the disgraced financier’s social circle.
Many have questioned the decades-old friendship between President Donald Trump and Epstein. But Bill Clinton’s relationship with the convicted sex offender has also been questioned. Neither Trump nor the Clintons have been accused of criminal wrongdoing related to Epstein.
The Clintons initially refused to testify in the House of Representatives investigation into Epstein, but have since agreed amid the threat to hold them in contempt of Congress. Hillary’s deposition is expected to be on Thursday and Bill’s on Friday.
The depositions will take place in the Clintons’ current hometown of Chappaqua, New York, and Republicans are hoping to release video of the interviews days later, according to a CNN source.
The Clintons and members of the House Oversight Committee have agreed to several talking points for the depositions, which include the alleged mismanagement of the federal investigation into Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s 2019 suicide and how Epstein and Maxwell sought to curry favor to protect themselves, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Maxwell is serving 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sex traffic minor girls.
The depositions are also expected to go over broader topics such as potential violations of ethics rules in connection with elected officials and how the government could fight against sex-trafficking rings.
The Independent has reached out to a representative for Bill Clinton for comment about his and Hillary’s deposition preparation.
The Department of Justice has released millions of documents related to Epstein after being compelled to do so by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Included in the documents are images of Bill Clinton, such as a photo of him in a hot tub alongside someone whose face was redacted, one of him and Epstein wearing matching silky shirts and another of him swimming with Maxwell.
Days after Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019, Bill Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña admitted the former president traveled on Epstein’s private plane, but said he “knows nothing about the terrible crimes” the disgraced financier had either pleaded guilty to or was accused of.
Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida in 2008.
The trips Clinton took in 2002 and 2003 “included stops in connection with the work of” his nonprofit, the Clinton Foundation, Ureña said.
While Clinton had met Epstein at his office and his apartment in New York in the early 2000s, according to Ureña, he had never been to his private island, where Epstein was accused of trafficking underage girls to before sexually assaulting them.
Ureña added that Clinton had “not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade” in his 2019 statement.
Hillary Clinton recently told the BBC she never met Epstein but did encounter Maxwell “on a few occasions.”
“We have nothing to hide. We have called for the full release of these [Epstein] files repeatedly. We think sunlight is the best disinfectant,” Hillary said.
