Lawmakers confirmed Bill and Hillary Clinton will not appear before Congress in its probe into Jeffrey Epstein.
The Republican-led House oversight committee subpoenaed the former president and first lady in August after chair James Comer announced the committee would look into the government's treatment of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who killed himself while awaiting trial in 2019.
The request for testimony, they ruled, "runs afoul of the clearly defined Congress' investigative power propounded by the Supreme Court of the United States" and "it is clear subpoenas themselves – and subsequent attempt to enforce them."
Hillary Clinton was subpoenaed to testify by Wednesday, and Bill Clinton was required to appear by Tuesday. Comer informed Capitol reporters that he would file a motion to hold the former president in contempt the following week after he failed to appear.
“I think it’s important to note that this subpoena was voted on in a bipartisan manner by this committee. This wasn’t something that I just issued as chairman of the committee,”
Comer said.
“No one’s accusing Bill Clinton of anything, any wrongdoing. We just have questions, and that’s why the Democrats voted along with Republicans to subpoena Bill Clinton.”
Prior to the financier's 2008 guilty plea to state charges of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor in Florida, Clinton was known to be friendly with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Survivors of Epstein's abuse have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing, and the former president has denied knowing about his crimes.
Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Democrats on the oversight committee said,
“Cooperating with Congress is important and the committee should continue working with President Clinton’s team to obtain any information that might be relevant to our investigation.”
The Clintons attacked Comer's handling of the investigation in a different statement, claiming that it had "prevented progress in discovering the facts about the government's role." They pointed out that despite having subpoenas for seven former high-ranking government officials, the committee has only conducted interviews with two individuals as part of its investigation: former labor secretary Alexander Acosta and former attorney general William Barr.
The president's pardoning of January 6 insurrectionists, the recent shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and Republicans' compliance with the president's program were all criticized.
“Bringing the Republicans’ cruel agenda to a standstill while you work harder to pass a contempt charge against us than you have done on your investigation this past year would be our contribution to fighting the madness,”
the Clintons wrote.
In the months that followed, a bipartisan group of House legislators forced a vote on legislation to reveal all government data pertaining to Epstein, which was passed in November over Trump's and Congress's Republican leaders' resistance.
Clinton appears in a number of photos, including one of the former president swimming in a pool and in a hot tub, that were made public when the justice department started releasing batches of papers in December, despite the fact that some documents were blacked.
Despite the law's requirement that the Justice Department provide all of the Epstein papers by December 19th, the department is still releasing them. A federal judge was urged by lawmakers last week to designate a special master to order the production of information pertaining to the deceased financier.
What legal arguments did the Clintons cite in their letters?
Bill and Hillary Clinton's attorneys argued in their January 2026 letters that the House Oversight Committee's processes warrant legal validity, serving no licit legislative purpose beyond political importunity.
The eight- runner response invokes separation of powers, asserting Congress can not impel evidence from former chairpersons absent imminent trouble to public security or felonious disquisition citing administrative honor over previous sworn statements in DOJ examinations. They claim the inquiry duplicates FBI/ DOJ sweats, violating Composition I limits on legislative overreach established in Senate Select Committee v. Nixon( 1974).
Processes failed acceptable particularity, demanding vague" all documents" on 26- time-old Epstein social ties without specifying applicability to pending legislation. previous voluntary exposures( flight logs, Maxwell prints) satisfied requests, rendering demands reiterative under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 45 norms applied to congressional process.