Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton, the former Secretary of State, have agreed to testify in the congressional investigation into late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
It comes days before a vote on whether to hold the couple in criminal contempt for refusing to appear before the House Oversight Committee after a months-long standoff.
Bill Clinton was acquainted with Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, but has denied knowledge of his sex offending and says he cut off contact two decades ago.
It’s unclear when the depositions will take place, but it will be the first time a former US president has testified to a congressional panel since Gerald Ford did so in 1983.
The House Oversight Committee has asked for the depositions to be filmed and transcribed in February, with no time limit. The committee gave the Clintons a deadline of Tuesday at 12:00 EST (17:00 GMT) to agree with the proposed deposition terms, according to the BBC’s US partner, CBS News.
The Clintons had long resisted a demand to appear before the committee, saying they had already given sworn statements representing the “limited information” they had on Epstein.
They had dismissed the legal summonses issued by the committee as “nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass political rivals, as President Trump has directed”.
The oversight committee, led by Republicans, then approved the measure to hold the Clintons in contempt late last month, with the support of several Democrats.
On Saturday, lawyers for the Clintons made an offer for them to provide limited testimony that would have centred on a four-hour interview by Bill Clinton. But Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer expressed concerns that the former president would stonewall questions and run down the clock.
On Monday evening, Bill Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff Angel Ureña posted on X confirming the couple would appear before the panel.”
By Anthony Solly
