WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify in a congressional investigation into Jeffrey Epstein in the hopes of avoiding a looming contempt vote in the House.Angel Ureña, a spokesperson for Bill Clinton, responded in a post Monday to a letter from House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, saying the Clintons had “negotiated in good faith”.The Oversight Committee subpoenaed the Clintons in August along with several top former Justice Department officials, including former Attorneys General Merrick Garland, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales; and former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller requesting testimony “related to the horrific crimes perpetrated by Jeffrey Epstein.”Bill Clinton has repeatedly denied wrongdoing related to the late convicted sex offender.It was not immediately clear whether Comer would accept the eleventh-hour offer, scuttling a full House vote to hold the Clintons in contempt for their repeated refusals to testify for months.“They negotiated in good faith. You did not. They told you under oath what they know, but you don’t care. But the former President and former Secretary of State will be there. They look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone,” Clinton spokesperson said in a defiant X post.Comer said in a statement Monday evening that he still had questions on the offer.“The Clintons’ counsel has said they agree to terms, but those terms lack clarity yet again and they have provided no dates for their depositions. The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt,” he said. “I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.”The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, however, said he didn’t see a scenario where the panel’s chairman didn’t accept the offer. The Clintons, he told CNN, had “accepted every single term that has been laid out by Comer.”“We’ve said from day one that we wanted Bill Clinton to testify in front of the Oversight Committee. We’ve been repeating that and we’ve been working obviously with their teams. And so, I’m glad they’re going to testify,” Rep. Robert Garcia said.Just hours earlier, the Republican chairman, unsatisfied by conditions the Clintons’ legal team sought to place on their cooperation, appeared set to move forward with the contempt proceedings.“It has been nearly six months since your clients first received the Committee’s subpoena, more than three months since the original date of their depositions, and nearly three weeks since they failed to appear for their depositions commensurate with the Committee’s lawful subpoenas,” Comer wrote at the time. “Your clients’ desire for special treatment is both frustrating and an affront to the American people’s desire for transparency.”The House Rules Committee was setting the parameters for such a vote when the latest proposal was made.The offer from the Clintons’ attorney came via email in the middle of a committee meeting as Comer was testifying about the contempt proceedings, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.Later Monday evening, House Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx announced that, given the developments, the panel would hold off on advancing the contempt resolutions. However, she noted that if there is not further progress overnight, they will return to consider them again.It wasn’t the Clintons’ first attempt to avoid proceedings.Through their attorneys, the pair had made multiple offers in recent days, including a four hour in-person voluntary interview in New York, which Comer had rejected earlier Monday.Attorneys for the former president and former secretary of state have been in discussion with the Republican-led committee multiple times since lawmakers from both parties voted in January to hold the Clintons in contempt for refusing to appear for in-person depositions as part of the panel’s investigation into Epstein.By rejecting the Clintons’ initial offer, Comer had all but ensured that the House would hold a final vote this week on the contempt resolutions.Even though the lawyers continued to push for the panel to drop its subpoena for Hillary Clinton’s testimony, they said she could submit a second sworn declaration or appear for an in-person interview in a similar format to her husband.In exchange, Clinton attorneys Ashley Callen and David E. Kendall had asked Comer to withdraw the subpoenas and contempt resolutions against them.Comer rejected that offer from the Clintons’ attorneys as “unreasonable” and said he could not accept such terms.The Justice Department on Friday released more than 3.5 million pages’ worth of files related to Epstein, which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said constituted about half of the more than 6 million relevant documents the Justice Department collected. Much of the released materials were redacted.The first set of Epstein files released by the Justice Department in December included numerous pictures of Bill Clinton, who his spokesperson said had flown on Epstein’s plane for Clinton Foundation trips in the early 2000s, before Epstein was charged with any sex crimes. — Agencies
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