Hillary Clinton tells House committee she had "no idea" about Epstein's crimes

Washington — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sat for a deposition with members of the House Oversight Committee on Thursday in New York, where she told lawmakers she had "no idea" about Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal activities.

After the hourslong deposition, Hillary Clinton said she answered "every one of their questions as fully as I could based on what I knew." Republicans and Democrats on the committee said the former secretary of state answered all of their questions. 

"I never met Jeffrey Epstein. Never had any connection or communication with him. I knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually as an acquaintance," Hillary Clinton told reporters, adding that Maxwell attended her daughter's wedding as a guest of someone who was invited. 

In her opening statement, Hillary Clinton told lawmakers, "I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes or offices. I have nothing to add to that."

Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, agreed to testify behind closed doors and comply with a subpoena to avoid a vote in the House to hold them in contempt. The about-face marked a victory for Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the committee's Republican chairman. He denied the Clintons' requests to hold the questioning in public, but has indicated a public hearing is possible after the closed-door depositions. Thursday's testimony was held at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons live.

But Hillary Clinton on Thursday appeared to close the door on a public hearing, saying after her deposition, "I'm not going to do it again."

"They had a chance to do it in public, and I wish they had done it in public," she said. 

In her opening statement, she claimed the committee's actions have been "designed to protect one political party and one public official, rather than to seek truth and justice for the victims and survivors," a reference to Republicans and President Trump. She accused the committee of compelling her testimony "fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump's actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers."

The former secretary of state said that if Republicans on the panel were serious, they would ask the president directly and under oath about Epstein. Mr. Trump's name appears thousands of times in the Epstein files released by the Justice Department. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The Free Press: WATCH: The Epstein Tapes, Part II: The Eye of the Law

Comer reiterated at a news conference ahead of the deposition Thursday that "no one's accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of wrongdoing." 

"They're going to have due process," Comer said. "But we have a lot of questions."

Comer said that the committee is seeking to understand how Epstein accumulated his wealth, how he surrounded himself with powerful individuals and whether he was a government asset. 

"These are the questions that we're going to ask over the next two days, and hopefully we'll be able to get some answers," he said. 

The deposition was briefly paused early on after Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado leaked a photograph of the proceedings to Benny Johnson, a right-wing commentator, in an apparent violation of House rules. Hillary Clinton called the incident "very upsetting." 

As the deposition was ongoing, Democrats on the committee stepped out to tell reporters that no new information had been revealed. 

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Hillary Clinton was "completely cooperating" and answering questions "in good faith." 

"To be clear, she's answering all the questions," Garcia said. 

After the day concluded, Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said Hillary Clinton "took every question from every single member." Republicans also said Hillary Clinton said some of the questions asked should be directed to her husband. 

"One of the things I learned today is, if you really have specific questions about the Clinton Global Initiative, or the relationship between the Clintons and Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, you got to ask Bill Clinton," Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said. 

"The number of times that she said, 'I don't know. You'll have to ask my husband,' was was more than a dozen," Comer added. 

Garcia has demanded that the committee's majority release the full, unedited transcript of the deposition within 24 hours. Comer said the committee would try to release video of the deposition "as quickly as possible, hopefully within the next 24 hours." 

Earlier, Garcia indicated that Democrats would use the precedent set by subpoenaing a former president to call Mr. Trump to testify in the future.

"We should be very clear that now that we're going to hear from former President Clinton, I hope that Chairman Comer and the Republicans will join us in demanding that the person who actually appears more times in the files than the former president, who we want to speak with, is President Donald Trump," Garcia said. "Let's get President Trump in front of our committee to answer the questions that are being asked across this country."

Comer has said it's not necessary to bring Mr. Trump in because he frequently answers questions from the press. The president's answers to the press are not under oath. 

Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat who also serves on the committee, questioned the motivation for deposing the former secretary of state. 

"There is no indication — zero, zip, zilch, nada — that Secretary Clinton had any knowledge of Epstein's crimes," he said before the testimony. "My fear is we're here today as part of a political exercise, part of a long-running fever dream where Republicans want to lock up Secretary Clinton."

Neither Clinton has been accused of wrongdoing and both have called for the full release of the Epstein files. 

In an interview with the BBC last week, Hillary Clinton accused Comer of holding firm on the in-person depositions to shift focus away from Mr. Trump's relationship with Epstein and his administration's handling of the Epstein files. 

"I have very strong opinions about what it is they're hiding and who they are protecting," she said. "Why do they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President Trump. This is not complicated."

In a sworn declaration submitted to the committee on Jan. 13, Hillary Clinton denied any "personal knowledge" of crimes committed by Epstein or his accomplice Maxwell. She also said she "never had any responsibility for or involvement with" the Justice Department's investigations into and prosecutions of Epstein and Maxwell during her two decades in public office or as a private citizen. 

In the BBC interview, Clinton said she met Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence on sex trafficking charges, "on a few occasions" through the Clinton Foundation. 

Clinton said Thursday that Republicans also asked her about UFOs and the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. 

"At the end," the deposition got "quite unusual," she said.