Punchbowl News: “Hillary Clinton will sit for a private deposition on Feb. 26, and Bill Clinton will follow a day later.”
“The Clintons are still pushing for public hearings. Comer, for his part, told me he’s happy to hold public hearings at a later date. But he insisted that private depositions are more substantive and suggested that after the private depositions, the Clintons won’t have any desire to appear in public.”
“Bill and Hillary Clinton are in House Republicans’ crosshairs — and the Democratic Party they once led isn’t coming to the rescue,” Politico reports.
“A youthful vanguard of progressive office-holders unlikely to even recall the Clinton presidency, let alone defend the former president’s foibles, have largely opted against defending the once formidable pair, even as many regard the GOP effort to compel their testimony blatantly hypocritical and politically driven.”
Said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA): “I don’t know, man, I was in kindergarten.”
Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to sit for separate depositions as part of the House Oversight Committee’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein, Punchbowl News reports.
The Clintons’ lawyers wrote to Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) asking for Comer to confirm that the House would no longer move forward with criminal contempt resolutions if the Clintons testify.
The Clintons have resisted testifying under oath about their ties to Epstein. The change in tune is a sign that the pair sought to avoid a potentially massive bipartisan vote holding the couple in criminal contempt.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chairman of the Oversight Committee, rejected an offer from Bill and Hillary Clinton to testify in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, just days ahead of an expected House vote on holding them in criminal contempt of Congress, the New York Times reports.
Bill and Hillary Clinton have been advised to cut a deal with Republicans to avoid being held in criminal contempt of Congress, after they defied a congressional subpoena to testify in a bipartisan probe into Jeffrey Epstein, Punchbowl News reports
“The House Rules Committee is taking up resolutions Monday to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the Oversight Committee’s Jeffery Epstein investigation,” Punchbowl News reports.
“This could set up floor votes next week. That would be a huge political moment and put House Democrats in a difficult spot.”
“Democrats have seized on the national backlash over the Epstein files and used it to pummel President Donald Trump. But they may now have to vote on whether to hold a former president and secretary of state, both huge figures in the Democratic Party, in criminal contempt over the probe.”
Punchbowl News: “Some senior Democrats are still seething that so many of their rank-and-file colleagues backed a stunning bipartisan committee vote to advance resolutions holding Bill and Hillary Clinton in criminal contempt of Congress.”
“Democrats are privately saying the Clintons have a limited window to resolve their standoff with the Oversight Committee or they risk the contempt resolutions passing the House with bipartisan support. House Oversight Republicans haven’t heard yet from the Clintons’ legal team today.”
“Democrats attempted to turn the page on the Clinton era Wednesday, delivering a stunning rebuke of the power couple that dominated their party for more than two decades,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Twenty-five years after former President Bill Clinton left office and a decade after Hillary Clinton was nominated as the party’s standard-bearer, a group of Democratic lawmakers refused to defend the pair, joining with Republicans on the House Oversight Committee to advance a resolution holding them in contempt of Congress for declining to appear for depositions regarding sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.”
“House Oversight Republicans will begin contempt of Congress proceedings against former President Bill Clinton after he failed to appear for a deposition Tuesday as part of the committee’s investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein,” Axios reports.
“Invoking contempt — a rarely used congressional enforcement tool — against a former president would mark a significant escalation by House Republicans.”
“Bill and Hillary Clinton refused on Tuesday to testify in the House’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation, escalating a monthslong battle with Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and effectively daring him to follow through on his threats to hold them in contempt of Congress,” the New York Times reports.
Said the Clintons, in a letter: “Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time.”
“Former President Bill Clinton featured prominently in the first batch of files released Friday by the Justice Department stemming from its investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the White House seized the chance to shift the focus of the highly anticipated documents from President Donald Trump,” the AP reports.
“There were several photos of Clinton among the thousands of documents made public. Some showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another photo shows him in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was also redacted.”
“Another photo shows Clinton in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted. The files do not say when or where the photos were taken and there was little context surrounding them.”
Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a 2011 email released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday that former President Clinton “never” visited his private island, NewsNation reports.
Said Epstein: “These stories are complete and utter fantasy… I don’t know and have never met Al Gore. Clinton was never on the island.”
“The Trump-era special counsel who scoured the Russia investigation for wrongdoing gathered evidence that undermines a theory pushed by some Republicans that Hillary Clinton’s campaign conspired to frame Donald Trump for colluding with Moscow in the 2016 election,” the New York Times reports.
“The information, a 29-page annex to the special counsel’s 2023 report, reveals that a foundational document for that theory was most likely stitched together by Russian spies.”
“The biggest name in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book back in 2003 was a past president rather than a future one,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell was keen for Bill Clinton and other boldface names to submit letters for the special gift, according to people involved in putting it together.”
“In the end, she was successful.“
Alex Cooper — the most popular female podcaster in the world — sat down with Monica Lewinsky on her “Call Her Daddy” podcast for an hourlong conversation about her affair with then-President Bill Clinton, CNN reports.
“President Bill Clinton was so enraged by the treatment of his wife, Hillary, during her failed presidential bid that he couldn’t sleep for two years, he now admits – or stop complaining about the shock defeat,” the Daily Mail reports.
“Writing in his new memoir, an emotional Clinton issues an apology to all those who found him hard going in the years following the 2016 contest, won by Donald Trump, which he describes as ‘the darkest election possible in the United States.’”
Former President Bill Clinton says in his new book that he wishes he “had never met” Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sexual offender, the Washington Examiner reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
