Former President Bill Clinton is demanding that his House oversight committee testimony about his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein be in a public hearing.
In a social media post Friday evening, Clinton blasted Republicans and Oversight committee chairman James Comer’s (R-KY) decision to have his testimony behind closed doors, saying he will “not sit idly as they use me as a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court by a Republican Party running scared.”
Clinton continued, “If they want answers, let’s stop the games & do this the right way: in a public hearing, where the American people can see for themselves what this is really about.”
The former president and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are set to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee later this month after being threatened with contempt of court. Hillary Clinton’s testimony is set for Feb. 26, and Bill Clinton’s is set for Feb. 27.
Clinton, whose relationship with Epstein has been subject to public scrutiny, said his desire for a public hearing is out of respect for Epstein’s victims and claimed Comer, who presides over the committee, is using Clinton as a political pawn.
“Now, Chairman Comer says he wants cameras, but only behind closed doors. Who benefits from this arrangement?” Clinton wrote on X. “It’s not Epstein’s victims, who deserve justice. Not the public, who deserve the truth. It serves only partisan interests. This is not fact-finding, it’s pure politics.”
In a tranche of files released in December, Clinton was pictured with Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislane Maxwell, as well as with women whose faces have been redacted.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s agreement to testify before the committee came at the eleventh hour, as the House prepared to hold them in contempt for failing to comply with a congressional subpoena for their testimony.
CLINTONS DODGE CONTEMPT AND SET DATES TO TESTIFY BEFORE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE
The Clintons have said any information they knew was in their sworn statements, but Comer has pushed for the two to appear before the committee.
The Department of Justice published over 3 million documents related to its investigation into the Epstein files last week, in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act signed into law last year.
