WASHINGTON — A House committee voted on a bipartisan basis Wednesday to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress, teeing up a full vote in two weeks’ time in the lower chamber that could result in criminal charges.
The House Oversight Committee voted 34-8 to hold the 42nd president in contempt for refusing to comply with their subpoena to testify about his relationship with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The resolution stated that Bill Clinton “impeded an Oversight Committee investigation” into the government’s handling of probes into Epstein and his imprisoned madam Ghislaine Maxwell.
It also claimed he had obstructed their inquiries into “the circumstances and subsequent investigations of Mr. Epstein’s death,” “the operation of sex-trafficking rings and ways for the federal government to effectively combat them,” “ways in which Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell sought to curry favor and exercise influence to protect their illegal activities” and “potential violations of ethics rules.”
“President Clinton’s willful refusal to comply with the Oversight Committee’s subpoena constitutes contempt of Congress and warrants referral to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for prosecution as prescribed by law,” a 20-page report accompanying the resolution noted.
The House lawmakers also voted 28-15 to hold Hillary Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of state, in contempt of Congress.
The Clintons have denied all wrongdoing, argued that the subpoenas were “invalid and legally unenforceable” and asserted no knowledge of Epstein or Maxwell’s sex crimes.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Attorney General Eric Holder and ex-White House advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro have all faced the same fate as the Clintons.
But only the latter two ended up serving time in a federal prison after declining to testify before the House Select January 6th Committee.
“The difference with Clinton is no executive privilege was invoked, and he’s facing a duly authorized committee,” Navarro told The Post on Tuesday. “If he gets a subpoena, he has to come. Full stop.”
“Clinton can’t argue — as [Steve] Bannon did correctly — that the committee was illegally formed and therefore the subpoena was illegal,” Navarro explained.
The Department of Justice brought charges against Bannon and Navarro, and both served four-month sentences in 2024 before President Trump’s return to the White House.
If adopted in the House, prosecuted and convicted, the Clintons could serve up to one year, but not less than one month, in jail and be fined between $100 and $1,000.
Republican and Democratic members of the Oversight panel had voted to issue subpoenas to Bill and Hillary Clinton last July.
Neither complied with the order for depositions after five months of back-and-forth between the Clintons’ lawyers and GOP chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
Comer has emphasized the former first couple’s personal relationship with Epstein and Maxwell being of interest to Oversight investigators, though Bill and Hillary Clinton in written declarations submitted last week denied fraternizing.
The former president attested that he had limited contact with Epstein for “philanthropic and life-saving humanitarian efforts,” which involved flights on the financier’s private jet between 2002 and 2003.
Both he and Hillary Clinton denied having visited Epstein’s “pedophile island” in the US Virgin Islands — while also noting that Maxwell for a time pursued “a personal relationship with a mutual friend.”
Steve Scully, a former IT contractor on Little St. James in the Caribbean, alleged in the 2020 Netflix documentary “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” that he once saw Bill Clinton on the remote island.
Both wrote under penalty of perjury that they did not recall “specific interactions” with Epstein and Maxwell when still serving in the White House in the 1990s — and no knowledge of the subsequent crimes for which the sex traffickers were charged in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Here’s the latest on the release of the Epstein files
“I do not recall speaking to Mr. Epstein for more than a decade prior to his 2019 arrest,” Bill Clinton said.
Neither Bill nor Hillary mentioned photos confirming Maxwell’s attendance at their daughter Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding.
Democrats broke with their party to join with Republicans on approving both resolutions for the ex-first couple — despite pushing for a similar contempt resolution to be advanced against Attorney General Pam Bondi.
During nearly six hours of debate Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans haggled over whether an 11th hour offer from the Clintons’ attorneys would suffice.
That would have allowed Comer, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), and two staff members from each party to have a transcribed deposition with Bill Clinton in New York.
“The Clintons’ latest demands make clear they believe their last name entitles them to special treatment,” the Republican chairman had said Tuesday.
“Former President Clinton has a documented history of parsing language to evade questions, responded falsely under oath, and was impeached and suspended from the practice of law as a result.”
So far, just former Attorney General Bill Barr and former South Florida US Attorney and ex-Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta have appeared for depositions with the Oversight panel.
Around half-a-dozen former federal law enforcement officials — including US attorneys general and FBI directors — were issued subpoenas, but Oversight Republicans acquiesced to written declarations from some.
In the case of Robert Mueller, the ex-FBI Director’s poor health precluded him from testifying.
Legal experts have indicated that prosecuting a former president for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena for testimony will put the DOJ in a difficult spot, possibly inclining them against filing charges.
“There are some past Justice Department opinions that suggest, particularly with President Clinton, that a former president is immune from compelled congressional testimony,” University of Kentucky law professor Walter Shaub told CBS News.
Reps for the Clintons did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
