Bill Clinton ‘Saw Nothing’ and ‘Did Nothing Wrong’
The former president’s testimony before the House about Jeffrey Epstein was cooperative but about as unhelpful as it gets.
Bill Clinton became the first former president to be deposed before Congress on Friday, though he probably won’t be the last. The chances that Donald Trump enjoys the same visit with Congress in 2029 or later just went up bigly.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were finally answering the subpoenas Congress hit them with in its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and associates. Those subpoenas came in August, and the Clintons dragged their feet for months, only complying when threatened with contempt.
As to be expected, both Clintons gave the old Sergeant Schultz defense: “I see nothing!”
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton told the House Oversight Committee, “I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes, or offices.”
Oversight Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, said of Mrs. Clinton, “There were at least a dozen times when she said, you’ll have to ask my husband that.”
On Friday, they did just that.
“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Bill Clinton told the committee in his opening statement. “As someone who grew up in a home with domestic abuse, not only would I not have flown on his plane if I had any inkling of what he was doing — I would have turned him in myself and led the call for justice for his crimes, not sweetheart deals.”
He was also shocked — shocked — to learn that there was gambling in the casino.
During questioning, the committee’s ranking Democrat, California’s Robert Garcia, redirected attention to the subject of Democrat ire: Donald Trump. “Should President Trump be called to answer questions for this committee?” he asked Clinton.
The former president coyly replied, “That’s for you to decide.” But Comer noted that Clinton also said, “President Trump has never said anything to me to make me think he was involved when he met with Epstein.”
For what it’s worth, David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Epstein’s girlfriend and federal convict Ghislaine Maxwell, said the same thing: “Both President Trump and President Clinton are innocent of any wrongdoing.”
While Hillary Clinton claims never to have even encountered Epstein, her husband flew on the late financier’s jet roughly two dozen times, and Epstein visited the White House more than a dozen times while Clinton was president. Several photographs of Bill Clinton were released as part of the Epstein files dumped by the Justice Department at the legislative behest of Congress in December.
Still, Clinton insisted in a sworn declaration to the committee submitted last month, “While Mr. Epstein may very well have attended any of the many hundreds of White House events or receptions during my eight years in office and been photographed with me as were tens of thousands of individuals, I do not recall encountering Mr. Epstein, or any specific interactions with him, while in office.”
Overall, the Clintons’ testimony provided a great big ‘ole … not much. The Clintons are too adept at avoiding self-incriminating statements. Despite Bill Clinton’s opening statement finger-wagging at the committee for involving Hillary Clinton, several Republicans on the committee conceded that the former president was cooperative. “President Clinton answered every question or attempted to answer every question,” Comer said. Representative Nancy Mace added that he answered questions “even when his attorneys told him to shut up.”
So, you may be asking, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Whatever the Clintons say now, Epstein and Maxwell certainly were financially entangled with the former first couple, particularly with the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. In fact, Maxwell helped launch the CGI and attended Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding. That was two years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction, when Maxwell was suspected of involvement. Perhaps their communication was something “wiped with a cloth or something” from Hillary’s infamous email server — those emails about yoga and (ahem) “wedding plans.”
In short, the Clintons have been lying to the American people for decades. Who’s going to believe them now?
I’ll close by noting that Bill Clinton’s opening statement included some jaw-dropping chutzpah to explain his attendance. “The girls and women whose lives Jeffrey Epstein destroyed deserve not only justice, but healing,” he told the committee. “They’ve been waiting too long for both.”
I know some other women who’d like a word with Mr. Clinton.
