Bill Clinton Denies Epstein Knowledge
Former President Bill Clinton testified before a House committee, where he categorically denied any knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's criminal activities. The historic deposition was part of a wider probe into Epstein's network, but Clinton's appearance reportedly offered little new information to investigators.
The deposition was compelled by a subpoena from the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. James Comer. The committee's investigation aims to review potential mismanagement of the federal government's probe into Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Clinton's wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testified before the same panel the day prior, stating she had never met Epstein. Clinton's representatives have stated he took four trips on Epstein's private plane between 2002 and 2003 for work related to the Clinton Foundation. However, flight logs obtained by news organizations suggest the number of individual flights was at least 26. One high-profile trip in 2002 was a multi-day humanitarian tour of Africa with actors Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker also on board. The former president has long maintained he had no knowledge of Epstein's criminal behavior, stating he ended his association with the financier around 2005. This was several years before Epstein's 2008 guilty plea in Florida to state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution. In a statement following his deposition, Clinton said if he had any inkling of the crimes, he "would have turned him in myself." The initial police investigation into Epstein began in March 2005 after a 14-year-old's family filed a report in Palm Beach, Florida. After serving 13 months in jail on state charges, Epstein was arrested again in July 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges. He died by suicide in his jail cell a month later. This congressional inquiry follows the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in November 2025. The act compelled the Justice Department to release millions of documents related to the Epstein investigation, spurring renewed scrutiny. Epstein's network involved several key associates, most notably Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in recruiting and abusing young girls. Other alleged recruiters and "potential co-conspirators" have been named in court documents and FBI files over the years. The unsealed court documents and flight logs have contained the names of numerous powerful people, including Britain's Prince Andrew, who settled a lawsuit with accuser Virginia Giuffre. The appearance of a name in the documents does not, on its own, indicate any wrongdoing.
