A senior congressman will begin contempt proceedings against Bill and Hillary Clinton after the couple refused to comply with a subpoena for an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer threatened the contempt proceedings after the pair did not show up for a scheduled deposition.
“Epstein’s survivors deserve justice and answers,” Comer wrote on X.
“Refusing to comply with a bipartisan, duly authorised congressional subpoena in our Epstein investigation is unacceptable.
“No one is above the law.”
Comer’s post on X included several photos of Mr Clinton which were released in the first batch of the Epstein files in December.
Contempt of Congress is a misdemeanour that can result in prison time.
Trump White House advisors Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were both jailed for four months in 2024 after defying a subpoena.
But the Clintons argued the subpoenas were “invalid and legally unenforceable” and “untethered to a valid legislative purpose”.
In a letter sent from their lawyers, the couple described Comer’s actions as “an unprecedented infringement on the separation of powers”.
Another letter penned by the Clintons themselves criticised Comer’s priorities in investigating the Epstein case.
“The decisions you have made, and the priorities you have set as chairman regarding the Epstein investigation, have prevented progress in discovering the facts about the government’s role,” the couple wrote.
They pointed out that of the other eight people also subpoenaed, seven were dismissed without any testimony.
The Clintons also criticised Comer for failing to force the Department of Justice to release “all of its Epstein files, including any material regarding us as we have publicly called for.”
“We have tried to give you the little information we have,” the Clintons said.
“We’ve done so because Mr Epstein’s crimes were horrific.”
The Clintons were both friends with financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Neither of the Clintons have been accused of any wrongdoing in connection to the Epstein case.
But Epstein visited the White House 17 times during the Clinton presidency. The former president flew on Epstein’s plane about 27 times.
“Continue to mislead Americans about what is truly at stake, and you will learn that Americans are better at finding the truth than you are at burying it,” the couple wrote.
“Continue to abet the dismantling of America, and you will learn that it takes more than a wrecking ball to demolish what Americans have built over 250 years.”
Comer is regarded as an attack dog of the right in his powerful role chairing the House Oversight Committee.
But he noted every member of the committee, Republican and Democratic, voted for the Clinton subpoenas.
“This wasn’t something that I just issued as chairman of the committee. This was voted on by the entire committee in a unanimous vote of the House Oversight Committee to subpoena former President Clinton and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,” he said.
Mr Clinton was supposed to show up to testify today. Mrs Clinton is scheduled tomorrow.
Another close friend of Epstein, President Donald Trump, has not been subpoenaed.
