After hours of closed-door questioning in the House Oversight Committee’s Jeffrey Epstein probe, Hillary Clinton emerged sharply critical of Republicans and the process that kept her testimony out of public view.
According to Fox News, the former secretary of state spoke to reporters following the roughly six-hour deposition in Chappaqua, New York, saying she answered questions “repetitively, literally over and over again” while accusing GOP lawmakers of avoiding a public hearing.
“They had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they had done it in public. And I think they’re making the wrong decision, avoiding doing it in public,” Clinton said, adding she would not testify again if a public session were later scheduled.
Clinton said the questioning took an unexpected turn near the end.
“It then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate, one of the most vile, bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of a member’s questions to me,” she said.
Despite her criticism, Clinton praised committee chairman James Comer for what she described as substantive lines of inquiry.
“So, I appreciated that. I want to see the truth come out. So, that was a reassuring way to end a very long, repetitive, deposition,” she said.
Clinton reiterated that she did not know Epstein and said she knew Ghislaine Maxwell only “as an acquaintance.” When asked why Maxwell attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, she said Maxwell had been a “plus-one of someone invited.”
Comer later told reporters the deposition was “productive” but said Republicans were not fully satisfied.
“The number of times that she said, ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband,’ was more than a dozen,” he said.
Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to sit for his own closed-door deposition, which Comer said would be longer.
Neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or Maxwell, though Bill Clinton had a known relationship with the financier before Epstein’s criminal conduct became public. Hillary Clinton said that relationship “ended years, several years, before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light.”
Rep. William Timmons described the session as “frustrating,” saying Clinton was “obstinate and sort of annoyed at the process.”
“She had an excuse for everything. But when you’ve got a pattern of involvement and a pattern of association, the American people deserve answers,” Timmons said, adding that Bill Clinton faces “a lot of really hard questions.”
Tensions also flared over alleged rule violations after Rep. Lauren Boebert reportedly shared a photo from inside the deposition room.
“We had a bit of a challenge in the beginning because we agreed upon rules based on the fact it was going to be a closed hearing at their demand. And one of the members violated that rule, which was very upsetting because it suggested that they might violate other of our agreements,” Clinton said. “So, we had to cease the hearing for a period of time until we could get assurances that no rules would be broken going forward.”
Her testimony began around 11 a.m. and concluded shortly after 5 p.m., setting the stage for the next phase of the committee’s investigation when Bill Clinton appears for questioning.
