Comer warns contempt as Clintons face January dates for Epstein-probe depositions

Politics

Comer warns contempt as Clintons face January dates for Epstein-probe depositions

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer is demanding the Clintons appear in January or face contempt

Elizabeth Elkind Fox News

Published

December 16, 2025 9:19am EST

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House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is delaying Bill and Hillary Clinton's depositions before Congress until January.

In a letter sent to their attorney on Monday evening, Comer warned that a failure to appear for their new dates would result in immediate contempt of Congress proceedings.

"They're saying now that he's going to a funeral on that day, so we've been going back and forth with the lawyer," Comer told Fox News Digital the same evening. "We're going to hold him in contempt if he doesn't show up for his deposition."

The letter said, however, that they failed to provide "alternative dates" for their testimonies.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton at President Trump's second inauguration

Bill and Hillary Clinton are being summoned to the House Oversight Committee in January 2026. (Melina Mara/Getty Images)

"Therefore, the Committee has chosen the date of January 13, 2026, for the deposition of President Clinton and January 14, 2026, for the deposition of Secretary Clinton. If your clients do not comply with these new dates, the Committee will move immediately to contempt proceedings," the letter said.

The Clintons were originally subpoenaed over the summer to testify in the House Oversight Committee's probe into Jeffrey Epstein.

They were part of a long list of former presidential administration officials called in for closed-door meetings with the panel's lawyers.

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To date, just two people have shown up in person — former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr, and former Trump administration Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.

Others have deferred their subpoena dates or opted to send in written statements due to various personal matters, but it appears Comer is not allowing the Clintons to side-step an in-person grilling.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer speaks to reporters in the Rayburn House Office Building in August 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

In his letter, the Republican leader even went so far as to criticize the Clintons' lawyer for asking for the same treatment.

"Your correspondence with the Committee continues to ignore the Committee’s arguments, misstates relevant facts, and seeks information about the Committee’s investigation to which neither you nor your clients are entitled," the letter said.

"As the Committee stated clearly in its November 21, 2025, letter to you, the Committee’s decision to forego in-person depositions for certain other individuals was because those individuals ‘lacked any relevant information to the Committee’s investigation or otherwise had serious health issues that prevented their testimony.’"

Comer said the former president and former secretary of state "are not similarly situated and therefore your argument that they are receiving unfair treatment — which you continue to repeat — is baseless."

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"For example, unlike these other individuals, President Clinton and Secretary Clinton had a personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell," he wrote.

Photos and other documents released by the committee so far have shown Bill Clinton and other powerful figures, including President Donald Trump, socializing with Epstein to varying degrees.

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Both Bill Clinton and Trump were shown to have handwritten entries in a book compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday, though until then much of the media scrutiny had been focused on Trump's entry alone.

Neither of the Clintons have been implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein, however, and their social engagements with him appear to have ended long before his 2019 federal indictment on sex trafficking charges and subsequent suicide.

Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.

Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com

Comer warns contempt as Clintons face January dates for Epstein-probe depositions