Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to appear Thursday before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door, filmed deposition as part of a bipartisan congressional investigation into the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a proceeding she has characterised as a politically motivated distraction from President Donald Trump’s own documented ties to the late financier, but which she agreed to attend after facing the prospect of being held in contempt of Congress.
The deposition is scheduled to take place in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons maintain their primary residence. Former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to give his own filmed, transcribed deposition the following day, Friday, February 27. Both sessions will be conducted under oath behind closed doors, and Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has said transcripts will be made public following the interviews.
The subpoenas compelling their appearance were issued on August 5, 2025, following a unanimous bipartisan voice vote by the committee’s Federal Law Enforcement Subcommittee in July. The road from subpoena to deposition was prolonged and acrimonious.
Former Secretary Clinton’s deposition was initially scheduled for October 9, 2025, then rescheduled to December 18 after she cited the need to attend a funeral. She subsequently declined to propose alternative January dates and failed to appear when the committee issued a follow-on subpoena dated January 14, 2026. Former President Clinton followed a nearly identical pattern, missing dates in October, December, and January, also citing a funeral on one occasion.
On January 21, 2026, the Oversight Committee voted to recommend that the full House of Representatives hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress for defying the subpoenas. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise warned that a floor vote would proceed if they continued to refuse. The Clintons relented days later, with their legal team ultimately accepting the standard deposition terms, filmed, transcribed, with no time limit and no restriction on the scope of questioning.
Hillary Clinton also publicly challenged the committee to hold the sessions in open hearing rather than closed deposition, posting on social media that the Clintons had “told them what we know, under oath” and accusing Republicans of turning accountability into “an exercise in distraction.” The committee declined, citing procedural consistency with how all other witnesses in the probe had been treated.
Neither Clinton has been accused of any crime in connection with Epstein. Hillary Clinton told the BBC in an interview this month that she does not believe she ever met Epstein. Her spokesman Nick Merrill has questioned from the outset why she was subpoenaed at all. Bill Clinton’s spokesman Angel Ureña has confirmed that the former president traveled on Epstein’s plane four times in 2002 and 2003, on trips conducted for the Clinton Foundation.
Former President Clinton has said he cut ties with Epstein before the financier was charged in Florida in 2006 with soliciting a minor, and has denied any wrongdoing. In an unusual interview last year, Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that “President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend,” saying it was she who arranged for Clinton and foundation members to use Epstein’s aircraft in 2002. Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for sex trafficking charges including conspiracy to entice minors.
Read Also: Clintons To Testify In House Epstein Investigation
Hillary Clinton told the BBC that the committee’s interest in her and her husband was straightforwardly political.
“Why do they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President Trump. This is not complicated,” she said. Representative Comer and committee Republicans have denied that charge, stating that the investigation is examining the full scope of Epstein’s network and that no individual is exempt from scrutiny.
The investigation operates against a backdrop of mounting public pressure over the Trump administration’s handling of Epstein-related material. The Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed by Congress in 2025, requires the Justice Department to make documents related to Epstein public. The Trump Justice Department has released more than three million pages of records under the act. The document releases have named a wide range of political and business figures, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, in connection with Epstein’s social circles. Trump himself socialised extensively with Epstein during the 1990s and 2000s, before Epstein’s 2008 Florida conviction. Representative Comer has said evidence gathered by the panel does not implicate President Trump in Epstein’s crimes.
The document releases have also had significant international consequences. In Britain, the material prompted criminal investigations into multiple public figures, most prominently Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Peter Mandelson, both of whom were arrested last week on suspicion of misconduct in public office over separate allegations connected to their ties to Epstein.
Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August 2019, while awaiting federal trial on sex-trafficking charges. The New York City medical examiner ruled his death a suicide by hanging, a conclusion that has been disputed by Epstein’s legal team and members of his family, who have called for further investigation. No official finding has altered the original ruling.
Read Also: New Mexico Approves Investigation Into Epstein’s Zorro Ranch
The House Oversight Committee’s investigation covers several distinct areas: the alleged mismanagement of the federal government’s investigation into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell; the extent and nature of Epstein’s network of influence; and the conduct of law enforcement and intelligence agencies across multiple administrations.
The Clintons are among more than a dozen witnesses subpoenaed, including former attorneys general Merrick Garland, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and Alberto Gonzales, as well as former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller.
It remains unclear how much new information the Clinton depositions will produce. Former Secretary Clinton has maintained that she has little relevant information to offer. Both depositions are scheduled to take place without public access or live broadcast. Representative Comer has indicated that should the sessions yield material of sufficient significance, the committee may convene a subsequent public hearing at which the Clintons could be called to testify on the record before cameras. No date for any such hearing has been set.