The House Oversight Committee has released video footage of the closed-door depositions of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton that occurred last week in Chappaqua, New York, as part of the panel’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
The former president and secretary of State each faced roughly 4 1/2 hours of questioning from Democratic and Republican lawmakers. Until now, everything that is known about the depositions was shared by people who were in the room.
Bill Clinton denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during what he said was the pair’s “brief acquaintance.”
Repeatedly, lawmakers showed the former president photos of himself with women from Epstein materials recently released by the Justice Department, asking if he had sex with them. Each time, he told them he did not, two sources familiar with the testimony said.
At one point, the panel homed in on a particularly well-known photo of Bill Clinton in a jacuzzi with a woman, her face redacted. Clinton said he did not know her, and he denied having sex with her, two sources said.
Here are key moments from the depositions.
Around halfway through Bill Clinton’s deposition, the former president denied sexual activity related to a photo of him in a hot tub near a woman with a redacted face.
“I sat in the hot tub for five minutes or whatever it was, and I got up and went to bed,” Clinton told Republican Rep. Nick Langworthy of New York.
When asked if he engaged in sexual activity with the redacted person, Clinton said no.
“I don’t know who that is,” Clinton said when asked who the person was.
The former president said he thought everyone in the pool area was part of his travel party, which included Jeffery Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and a team working on Clinton’s AIDS initiative. Clinton and his team showed an additional photo that was described to show the larger area with a pool next to the hot tub.
Clinton said he was “almost sure” that the photo had been taken during a trip to Brunei where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference was being hosted in 2000.
Clinton stressed that the Sultan of Brunei insisted that he stayed at the hotel and encouraged him to use the pool.
Bill Clinton told the panel while his note to Epstein appears in the convicted sex offender’s 50th birthday book, he did not consider Epstein a “friend” and that he’s written “hundreds and hundreds” of birthday greetings to people over the years.
Clinton, asked whether he knew of Epstein’s “inappropriate activities” at the time that he penned the note, responded: “Absolutely not. I knew nothing about that.”
Hillary Clinton said during her deposition that her years of watching and running against Donald Trump has led her to believe that he has a “tell” of deflecting when he is worried about being “found out himself.”
Clinton used this observation to explain why the president has changed his tune on the Epstein files, from demanding its release as a presidential candidate, to now calling the effort a “hoax” and telling the country to “get on to something else.”
“Having observed President Trump up close and personal for a number of years now since I ran against him, he has a tell. He has a behavioral tell,” she said. “Whenever he is worried about being found out himself, he accuses somebody else of doing what he actually has done. And it’s just a pattern with him.”
“So, it’s no surprise to me that all of a sudden what he promised in his campaign to reveal, everything about the files, and then when his people began looking at the files and realized how potentially incriminating they were of him, all of a sudden, that was no longer the focus,” she added.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina repeatedly goaded Hillary Clinton to share her reactions to photos showing her husband, Bill Clinton, with women and Epstein. The latter part of Clinton’s presidency was derailed by his marital infidelity.
Hillary Clinton repeatedly declined to weigh in on the photos she had seen. She repeatedly said she would not share such “opinions” and that she was there to testify about specific matters.
When Mace persisted, Clinton suggested she was employing “innuendo,” but Mace said she was asking “black and white” questions.
Finally, when Mace asked whether Clinton did anything to investigate her husband’s interactions with Epstein after learning about the allegations against him, Clinton hit back.
“I don’t find any of your questions to be relevant to the investigation,” Clinton said.
About an hour and twenty minutes into her deposition, Hillary Clinton became furious that a Republican congresswoman had released a photo from her deposition, which is against House rules.
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado shared the photo with conservative influencer Benny Johnson.
“I’m done with this,” Clinton said. “If you guys are doing that, I am done. You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home. This is just typical behavior.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” an exasperated Clinton added.
Boebert eventually said she would take the photo down. (Publicly, Boebert has been unapologetic.)
Democrats asserted this was a violation of House rules and the discovery of the image being shared caused the deposition to be paused while the two sides negotiated how to move forward.
The Clintons had repeatedly said they wanted to appear in public.
“I will confess, that I had some concerns about whether the majority on the committee would treat me fairly, and would you know fairly convey what I say and what I did and I how I looked and how I responded,” Clinton said at one point, adding that if the hearing was public the photo would not have been an issue.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
