WASHINGTON, D.C. – Former US President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before Congress as part of an investigation into the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, ending a months-long standoff with the House Oversight Committee.
The decision comes just days before lawmakers were set to vote on whether to hold the Clintons in criminal contempt for refusing to comply with subpoenas issued by the Republican-led committee.
Clinton deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña confirmed the development on Monday evening in a post on X, saying the couple would appear before the panel despite what he described as bad-faith tactics by investigators.
“They negotiated in good faith,” Ureña wrote, addressing the House Oversight Committee. “You did not. … But the former President and former Secretary of State will be there. They look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone.”
While the timing of the depositions has not yet been announced, the testimony would mark the first time a former US president has appeared before a congressional committee since Gerald Ford testified in 1983.
The House Oversight Committee approved contempt proceedings against the Clintons late last month in a bipartisan vote that included support from several Democrats.
Chairman James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, has argued that the subpoenas were necessary to establish what prominent figures knew about Epstein and when.
“No one is above the law,” Comer said previously, accusing Clinton’s legal team of repeatedly delaying compliance.
Both Clintons have maintained that they already provided sworn written statements and shared what they describe as the “limited information” they had about Epstein.
In earlier filings, they dismissed the subpoenas as politically motivated, accusing President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans of attempting to embarrass political opponents.
Bill Clinton has acknowledged a past association with Epstein but has consistently denied any knowledge of his sex trafficking crimes, saying he cut off contact with the financier more than 20 years ago. He has never been accused of wrongdoing by Epstein’s survivors.
Flight logs show that Clinton traveled on Epstein’s private jet on four international trips in 2002 and 2003.
Photographs released by the Justice Department in December, under a law mandating disclosure of Epstein-related investigative records, also show the former president at Epstein’s estate, including images of him swimming in a pool and reclining in what appears to be a hot tub.
At the time, Ureña said the photos were decades old and taken before Epstein’s criminal conduct became public.
In a letter sent last month to Chairman Comer, the Clintons sharply criticized the committee’s handling of the investigation, arguing that partisan priorities had stalled efforts to uncover the government’s role in failures surrounding Epstein.
“There is no plausible explanation for what you are doing other than partisan politics,” the letter said.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, leaving unresolved questions about his network of associates and the extent of official oversight failures—questions that continue to fuel congressional scrutiny.
