‘I saw nothing that ever gave me pause’: Bill Clinton says he had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton said in an opening statement made public on Friday that if he had knowledge of crimes committed by Jeffrey Epstein when the two men were acquainted, “I would have turned him in myself.”

Clinton, 79, is giving a closed-door deposition on matters related to the investigations and prosecutions of the late, convicted sex offender to a Republican-led House oversight committee from his Chappaqua, N.Y., hometown.

Hillary Clinton, his wife and the former U.S. secretary of state, told the same panel on Thursday that she had never met Epstein.

It is rare for a former president to be called to testify to a congressional committee, and the two previous occasions that has occurred since the Second World War were not for adversarial reasons.

The Clintons had resisted appearing in person in a battle with Rep. James Comer of Kentucky and the Republican-led committee. After a written statement from the couple was rejected, Comer held a vote to hold the Clintons in contempt.

The 42nd president has denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of Epstein’s criminal behaviour during their relationship.

Bill Clinton said in his statement, “I saw nothing that ever gave me pause.”

Clinton has previously said there was no contact between him and Epstein after 2005, but has never publicly stated why.

He has said most of their interactions were during the 2001-2003 period as he was launching the Clinton Foundation, which concentrates on health initiatives in developing countries. It is known that Clinton made use of Epstein’s plane on several occasions.

“You’ll often hear me say that I don’t recall,” Clinton said in the statement addressed to the committee. “That might be unsatisfying. But I’m not going to say something I’m not sure of.”

Protesters demonstrate near the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center ahead of former U.S. president Bill Clinton’s closed-door deposition with the House’s oversight committee on Friday in Chappaqua, N.Y., where they called on President Donald Trump to be questioned about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Epstein was indicted in Florida in 2007 on charges that led to a conviction on state charges of charges of soliciting prostitution from someone under age 18. While awaiting a federal prosecution on a host of charges in 2019, he was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in a death ruled a suicide.

“We are only here because he hid ​it from everyone so well for so long,” said Clinton.

The former president also expressed annoyance in his statement that his wife was called for a deposition: “Whether you subpoenaed 10 people or 10,000, including her was simply not right.”

Democrats want to hear from Trump

In recently released files mandated by the Epstein Transparency Act, Bill Clinton is seen in a number of photos with Epstein and others. He is also seen in an undated photo with Ghislaine Maxwell and a woman whose face has been redacted in a jacuzzi, a photo Republicans who held a brief pre-deposition news conference said they asked his wife about.

Appearing in the file or photos is not evidence of any wrongdoing, but in the former president’s case may not enhance his image.

Clinton was impeached in 1998 and his presidency was often overshadowed by his own reckless behaviour — he denied for months and then admitted a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern 27 years his junior, and he was deposed in a civil suit by Paula Jones, who alleged a sexual harassment incident while he was Arkansas governor, which he denied.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, left, and an unidentified woman are seen in this image from Epstein’s estate, released by the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 19, 2025. (U.S. Justice Department/Reuters)

Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein friend convicted of federal sex trafficking charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022, seemed to downplay the depth of the Clinton-Epstein relationship in an interview last year with the U.S. Justice Department.

Maxwell said Epstein and Clinton “met because of me and the plane was because of me.”

“I didn’t see President Clinton being interested in Epstein,” she said at another point. “[Epstein] was just a rich guy with a plane.”

U.S. President Donald Trump was also known to have made use of Epstein’s plane on several occasions decades ago. Members of Trump’s administration also had relationships of some kind with Epstein, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The lead Democrat on the committee, Robert Garcia, called on Trump and Lutnick to appear for questioning. Alleging that the committee is playing partisan politics, Democrats have also pointed out that no Republicans attended a recent session with Leslie Wexner, the business executive and Epstein friend whose political donations over the course of his life have been largely to Republican politicians.

Comer said there’s no need for the committee to hear more from Trump because he’s been asked about his relationship numerous times by reporters.

Conspiracy theory mentioned: Hillary Clinton

For her part, Hillary Clinton told reporters after the Thursday session that much of the day was “pointless.”

In an opening statement shared publicly and in comments after the session, she questioned the sincerity of Republican efforts to combat sex trafficking. She said that toward the end of the session, the questioning veered off topic and even included a query about Pizzagate, the discredited conspiracy theory about Democrats and child sex trafficking that almost led to deadly consequences at a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.

Commenting on the off-topic questions, which reportedly included a UFO query, Democratic committee member Maxwell Frost said Friday, “Don’t waste the time of survivors who have been waiting and waiting for justice.”

WATCH | Former secretary of state said questions were repetitive:

Hillary Clinton says she faced questions about Epstein ties — and UFOs

During a closed deposition before Congress, former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton said she faced repeated questions about her ties to Jeffrey Epstein — a connection she denies ever existed. Clinton said she also faced questions about UFOs.

While Bill Clinton’s representatives have previously said he flew on Epstein’s private plane four times, other reports suggest a larger number.

It’s not clear if flight legs are being confused as flights. It is known that the pair, along with several others, flew to Hong Kong in late 2003 as the former president was undertaking work related to the Clinton Foundation. Recently released files from the Justice Department include a photo of the pair with Mick Jagger, as the Rolling Stones were playing a show in Hong Kong at the same time.

On another occasion the previous year, Clinton was on Epstein’s plane with passengers who included actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey as part of a multiday humanitarian tour of Africa that made stops in a handful of countries.

Clinton, as a former president, also travels with Secret Service agents.

Maxwell has said she didn’t see anything untoward with the former president when she was on flights with them.

“I don’t believe there was ever a massage on the plane,” she said to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last summer, according to an interview transcript. “So that would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage. And he didn’t, because I was there.”

Maxwell not an invited wedding guest

Hillary Clinton told reporters Thursday that Maxwell was at daughter Chelsea Clinton’s marriage in 2010 because she was brought as a “plus one, the guest of someone who was invited.”

Maxwell told Blanche in her interview last year she was at the wedding with “Ted Waitt, my boyfriend.”

WATCH | Republican chair insisted Thursday Clintons may know important information:

Top Republican on House committee rejects suggestion he wants to shame Bill, Hillary Clinton

James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee, says the Clintons are being asked to give depositions in U.S. Congress because they ‘haven’t answered very many questions’ about their relationship to Jeffrey Epstein. Comer also didn’t reject the possibility of hearing from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who also had ties to the late convicted sex offender.

Maxwell said that Waitt, founder of computer company Gateway Inc., was close to the former president. Public donor lists have established that Waitt donated millions to the Clinton Foundation.

Maxwell told Blanche that she and Epstein met Clinton in the early 1990s when he was president, at a benefit where “a thousand other people shook his hand.”

Logs from Clinton’s presidential records indicate that Epstein visited the White House more than a dozen times. The scope of these visits is not totally clear, but Maxwell said Epstein was friends with Mark Middleton, a White House official in the Clinton administration.

She said she then became close to the Clintons for a time after the two-term presidency, including visiting their Chappaqua residence more than once, because she was involved in efforts to help launch the Clinton Global Initiative.