Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday criticized questions she said she got from House Republicans about UFOs and the \u201cPizzagate\u201d conspiracy during her deposition as part of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee\u2019s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt then got, at the end, quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs and a series of questions about Pizzagate \u2014 one of the most vile bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet \u2014 that was serving as the basis of a member\u2019s questions to me,\u201d Clinton told reporters after her deposition in Chappaqua, N.Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She added, however, \u201cI want to commend Chairman [James] Comer [R-Ky.] for raising a series of significant questions that I responded to about the nature of the investigation and the areas that I thought should be explored. So I appreciated that, I want to see the truth come out. So that was a reassuring way to end a very long, repetitive deposition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinton said she answered \u201cevery one\u201d of the committee\u2019s questions as fully as she could based on what she knew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought it was very repetitive,\u201d Clinton later said. \u201cI thought that they literally asked the same questions over and over again, which didn\u2019t seem to me to be very productive. And then, as I said toward the end, there were several questions that were off-subject.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said she never met with Epstein and that she knew his associate Ghislaine Maxwell \u201ccasually, as an aquaintance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She later said she was confident that the Department of Justice\u2019s (DOJ) files related to Epstein do not reveal anything that suggests her husband, former President Clinton, knew about Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinton said she will not testify again and slammed the committee for not allowing the hearing to be in public, as she and Bill Clinton had pushed for, saying they could have \u201cspent their day more productively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.) hinted at the questions Clinton was asked during an appearance on CNN. Anchor Jake Tapper asked if it was true that the questions about UFOs and \u201cPizzagate\u201d were asked during the deposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI hope that the transcript will be released within 24 hours,\u201d Subramanyam told Tapper. \u201cI\u2018m not allowed to say specifics about it, but I will just say that the transcript will be very revealing about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) praised the hearing and wrote on the social platform X that Clinton \u201cgave us plenty to work with today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo generous, in fact, that she gave us plenty of ammunition heading into tomorrow\u2019s deposition with her husband,\u201d Mace wrote. \u201cI got three rounds with her today, and I\u2019m just getting warmed up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Clintons agreed to sit for depositions under threat of being held in contempt of Congress for defying a congressional subpoena. The former president, who flew on Epstein\u2019s plane a few times during the early 2000s and who appears in photos released as part of the Epstein files, is scheduled to sit for a deposition Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Controversy boiled over earlier in the deposition Thursday after Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) leaked a photo from inside the room, which was against the rules set out for the interview. Oversight Democrats called it \u201cunnacceptable\u201d that Republicans broke \u201ctheir own committee rules that they established with the Secretary and her team,\u201d ranking member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When later asked about the photo, Boebert made a reference to the FBI\u2019s investigation into Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server while serving in the Obama administration. The issue became a key controversy during the final stretch of her 2016 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just returned to my hotel room and installed the BleachBit software \u2026 So, I guess in regards to taking photos, I do not recall,\u201d Boebert quipped to reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n