Former President Bill Clinton defied a House Republican committee’s subpoena Tuesday in an escalating battle over Congress’s handling of an investigation of disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer threatened the former president with a contempt prosecution, while Clinton accused the Republican of mounting a partisan campaign to hide, rather than reveal, the truth about Epstein and his powerful connections.
Clinton failed to appear at a deposition for Comer’s panel Tuesday. Instead, the former president posted a letter to the chairman on social media denouncing his investigation and condemning him for resisting successful legislation to force disclosure of Justice Department files on Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
“If the government didn’t do all it could to investigate and prosecute these crimes, for whatever reason, that should be the focus of your work – to learn why and to prevent that from happening ever again. There is no evidence that you are doing so,” Clinton wrote in a letter co-signed by his wife, former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who has also been subpoenaed by the panel.
