WASHINGTON — Facing the threat of being held in contempt of Congress, Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed Tuesday to testify before the House Oversight Committee about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Democrats now say Republicans have established a precedent when it comes to Congress’ ability to subpoena and haul in past presidents, first ladies and family members under threat of criminal charges if they refuse — a precedent they warn the GOP and Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., will soon regret.
“We are absolutely going to have Donald Trump testify under oath” when Democrats take back power, California Rep. Ted Lieu, a member of Democratic leadership who for years has been highlighting Donald Trump’s ties to Epstein, told NBC News on Tuesday.
“It is a big deal,” added Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., a former House majority leader who is retiring after serving more than 45 years in the chamber. “And it’d be interesting to see what former President Trump thinks of that premise.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., a young progressive who serves on the Oversight panel, said Democrats “100%” will take advantage of the precedent set by Republicans.
“It does set a precedent, and we will follow it … Donald Trump, all of his kids. Everybody,” Frost said.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., chair emeritus of the Progressive Caucus, agreed with his colleagues: “This will make Donald Trump happy in the short term, but in the long term, a year from now, we have subpoena power.”
He warned: “What goes around comes around.”
In a statement to NBC News, the White House brushed aside Democrats’ warnings and said Trump “is working night and day to deliver results for the American people.”
“These Democrats — suffering from severe cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome — should focus on implementing good policies, like President Trump is, not falling for blue-anon conspiracy theories,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said Tuesday. “These antics are why Congressional Democrats have record low approval ratings.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., an Oversight Committee member known for his frequent on-camera clashes with Comer, said the chairman is sealing his legacy — and won’t like what comes next when Democrats next take control of the House, and its committees on Oversight, Banking and Judiciary.
“The folks here are going to run with it everywhere. It will be crypto. It will be their business. It will be all the investments in the Middle East. It’ll be the Qatari plane? It’s going to be the latest thing with the UAE. It’s going to be all of it,” Moskowitz added. “All of it. They are giving a license to these new chairmen in January and that will be Comer’s legacy. So when [Don] Junior and Eric and their children — not because I want this to happen, because I don’t, I don’t want it to happen — but when they’re all here, they can thank James Comer for that.”
The House was set to move forward this week with a vote to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress after they refused to comply with a subpoena for their testimony in the panel’s Epstein investigation. The vote was expected to be bipartisan, with some Democrats saying they would vote alongside Republicans.
Seeing the writing on the wall, the Clintons agreed to testify before the committee. Comer, the Oversight chairman, said the Clintons will appear before his committee Feb. 26 and 27 “for transcribed, filmed depositions,” though the Clintons’ attorney said the former first couple would prefer to appear in public. The two sides are engaged in a standoff over the format of the interview.
Both Bill Clinton and Trump were friendly with Epstein and appear in photographs with the convicted sex offender from the ’90s and early 2000s, prior to his conviction. Both said they cut off their relationships with Epstein before he was charged. Trump and former President Clinton have denied any wrongdoing and neither has been accused of wrongdoing by law enforcement.
Some Democrats don’t even want to wait for Trump to leave office, saying he should testify now about his interactions with Epstein and what he may have known about Epstein’s crimes.
“The precedent it sets is that Donald Trump better be showing up before Oversight on the Epstein matter,” said Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a member of that panel who also co-authored legislation that forced the release of the Justice Department’s Epstein files. “I hope Comer will pursue that with the same zeal he’s pursued the Clintons.”
Asked by NBC News on Tuesday if he’s setting a precedent that Democrats could use to call Trump to testify, Comer conceded, “It could set a precedent.” However, the chairman said he’s not interested in bringing the president in now because “he’s been answering questions about Epstein” from the press.
The last time House Democrats were in power, they issued a subpoena to Trump in 2022, demanding that he provide documents and testimony as part of the Jan. 6 select committee’s investigation into the Capitol attack. Trump refused to comply, and the House took no further action.
“It’s clear that past presidents are not off limits for subpoenas,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the former top Democrat on Oversight who led his party’s impeachment efforts against Trump after the Jan. 6 attack, told NBC News.
Clinton, Raskin said, “is a past president who had rendered substantial good-faith compliance. But if there is a former president who doesn’t render substantial good-faith compliance, they’re going to be in trouble under this precedent. All bets are off.”
Another Democratic lawmaker pointedly said to expect Trump to be called in to testify before the House.
“Given the level of corruption that we’ve seen from this administration, the entire Trump family and the president himself, I think we should anticipate that this president will be called in after his term as well,” said Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., a former Trump National Security Council staffer who helped report on information that led to his first impeachment.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the now-defunct Jan. 6 committee, gave a curt response when asked Tuesday what the Comer-Clinton standard means for the House’s future.
“When is Trump coming?” she said.
