Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told a congressional committee she does not recall ever meeting the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and has no information to share about his 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," Clinton said in a statement to the House of Representatives Oversight Committee she shared on social media.
“Like every decent person," Clinton added, “I have been horrified by what we have learned about their crimes.”
Clinton's statement came as she delivered a closed-door deposition to the committee in Chappaqua, New York.
The hearing was paused at one stage on Thursday after Republican Lauren Boebert sent a photo of the closed-door proceedings to a conservative influencer, violating the committee's rules for depositions.
Benny Johnson, a right-wing Youtuber, posted a photo of Clinton at the deposition online and said Boebert had provided it.
The incident prompted the former secretary of state to repeat her longstanding demand that the deposition be made open to reporters.
The deposition is being recorded on video, but will only be released after Clinton’s attorneys have a chance to review it. The committee’s rules do not allow outside press or photographers to take photos of the proceedings.
GOP chair of the House Oversight panel James Comer says it’s possible lawmakers will question Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the investigation into Epstein.
Comer is seeking to cast the investigation as a bipartisan effort that is also willing to question Republicans.
Lutnick was Epstein’s neighbour in New York City. He had previously claimed that he cut all ties with Epstein after 2005, but the release of case files on Epstein showed that they had several interactions in the years after that.
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, also accused the Republican-led panel of trying to shift focus away from Trump's ties to Epstein, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.
She said Trump's administration has "gutted" a State Department office focused on international sex trafficking.
She and her husband, Democratic former President Bill Clinton, initially refused to testify before the committee, but relented when lawmakers moved to hold them in contempt of Congress. Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify on Friday.
Before the hearing, Comer denied that the probe was a partisan effort targeting Trump's 2016 presidential rival, noting that several Democrats had pushed for the Clintons to testify.
Hillary Clinton's ties to Epstein are unclear. Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's plane several times in the early 2000s after he left office. He has denied wrongdoing and expressed regret for his association.
According to Comer, Epstein visited the White House 17 times while Clinton was in office.
Trump also socialised extensively with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s, before the latter's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Comer said evidence gathered by the panel does not implicate Trump.
Trump's Justice Department has released more than three million pages of Epstein-related documents over the past several months to comply with a law passed by Congress.
The Justice Department sought to draw attention to photos of Bill Clinton, but the documents also have revealed Epstein's ties to a long list of business and political leaders, including Lutnick and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Overseas, they have prompted criminal investigations of Britain's Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former duke of York, and other prominent figures.
