The Oversight Committee has been trying to summon the Clintons for hearings for about four months, but they have not appeared. According to James Comer, the committee's Republican chairman, he will begin the official process of legal action against Bill Clinton for contempt of Congress next week. If Hillary does not provide testimony on Wednesday, similar measures will be taken against her.
Comer also noted that the Clintons have been ignoring and delaying the process of setting a date for their appearance, which has caused dissatisfaction among committee members.
The U.S. Congress has the right to detain testimony that is not voluntarily provided and can refer to the Department of Justice with a request to initiate a contempt of Congress case. Contempt is a criminal offense and can result in a fine of up to $100,000 and a prison term of up to one year.
Clintons' Reaction
Bill and Hillary Clinton's lawyers claim that the subpoenas issued to them are impossible to comply with, as the couple has already provided limited information about Jeffrey Epstein. They believe that the hearings have a political motive and are an attempt to discredit political opponents at the direction of President Trump.
In their letter to Comer, the Clintons expressed confidence that reasonable people would understand that the real goal is to punish enemies and protect friends, rather than a pursuit of justice.
Clinton also added in his post that the situation does not concern political views but rather moral principles. The people who suffered from Epstein's crimes never accused him of any wrongdoing, and Clinton insists that he had no knowledge of Epstein's sexual offenses.
Photographs showing Clinton with Epstein were released by the Justice Department as part of the financier's case, taken from the 1990s to the early 2000s, before Epstein's arrest for sexual exploitation.
In one of the photographs, Bill Clinton is depicted by the pool at Epstein's villa. Clinton's representatives emphasize that he severed all ties with Epstein before his crimes became known.
However, they acknowledge that in 2002 and 2003, Clinton traveled on Epstein's private plane and met with him in New York. Some sources report that the flights occurred more than 20 times, sometimes without the accompaniment of Secret Service agents who were supposed to ensure the former president's safety.
Over the past year, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have called for the disclosure of information regarding Epstein's connections with influential people. They passed a law requiring the release of all materials related to the case by mid-December, but the Justice Department has only published part of the documents. Last week, the bill's authors went to court requesting the appointment of a special administrator to ensure compliance with the legislation.
