CHAPPAQUA, United States — Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House Oversight Committee on Thursday that she had no additional information to offer about Jeffrey Epstein or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, as she criticised Republican members over the direction of their inquiry.
Clinton delivered an opening statement during a closed-door deposition with lawmakers and later posted the statement on X on Thursday, February 26, 2026.
“I had no idea about their criminal activities. I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island home or offices,” she said.
She accused the committee of pursuing partisan objectives by requiring her and former President Bill Clinton to sit for depositions.
“[Y]ou have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation. in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she wrote in the statement.
She added: “If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.”
President Donald Trump has denied wrongdoing connected to Epstein and has not been charged in relation to him.
The Clintons have also denied wrongdoing and have not been accused of crimes linked to Epstein.
Committee Response
Before the interview, Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the committee, told reporters that the investigation was not politically motivated.
“This isn’t a partisan witch hunt. This was a motion, a bipartisan motion, supported by the Democrats, to bring the Clintons in. So I don’t think it’s any type of being unfair in any way to the Clintons,” Comer said.
The deposition, which is being videotaped, took place in Chappaqua, New York, where the Clintons have a residence. The committee is scheduled to interview former President Bill Clinton on Friday.
Comer described the proceedings as extensive.
“We worked for six months to get the Clintons to come in,” he said, adding that it was “going to be a long video and a long deposition,” and that the former president’s session would be “even longer.”
He said the panel would release transcripts and video after approval. “We’re going to release the transcripts, release the video as soon as everyone approves it,” Comer said.
He added, “No one has accused the Clintons of wrongdoing,” but said the committee was “trying to understand many things” about how Epstein operated.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s top Democrat, said the interview should set a precedent for further testimony.
“Today sets a precedent,” Garcia said. “We want to talk to former President Bill Clinton, and the other person we want to talk to is current President Donald Trump,” he added, urging Republican members to help “get President Trump in front of our committee.”
The in-person interviews followed months of dispute between the Clintons and the committee, which at one stage threatened to hold them in contempt of Congress over an August subpoena.
Prior Connections and Public Records
Undated photographs showing Bill Clinton with Epstein and Maxwell were released in December under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, a 2025 law requiring the Justice Department to disclose investigative files related to Epstein and Maxwell.
It is unclear where the photographs were taken.
Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Bill Clinton, has said that the former president travelled on Epstein’s plane four times in 2002 and 2003 for trips connected to the Clinton Foundation.
It is not known whether Hillary Clinton ever met Epstein. In an interview with the BBC this month, she said she did not believe she had.
Hillary Clinton has acknowledged knowing Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of federal sex trafficking charges and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
In an interview last year with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Maxwell said that “President Clinton was my friend, not Epstein’s friend,” and that she had asked Epstein to allow Bill Clinton and other foundation members and guests to use his plane in 2002.
Maxwell said she had been introduced to Bill Clinton after he left office in 2001 and that she met Hillary Clinton on “a few occasions.” She told Blanche, “I went to the house in Chappaqua a few times.”
Asked when she last saw Bill Clinton, Maxwell said: “It was in — was late 2000 and, I don’t know, ’16, ’17, ’18, something in — it was in Los Angeles. I think he was hosting something or he was at an event and I was in L.A. and I had dinner with him.”
In a sworn declaration submitted to the Oversight Committee last month, Bill Clinton said, “I have no recollection of when I first met Ms. Maxwell, though I believe she was working for Mr. Epstein at the time.” He added: “I have no recollection of exactly when I last saw her, but it was many years ago.”
A separate declaration from Hillary Clinton used similar language, and both said they had “no personal knowledge” of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s “criminal activities.”
Maxwell told Blanche that she never observed Bill Clinton or Trump engage in inappropriate conduct.
Following her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was transferred from a prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
