Bill And Hillary Clinton Now Agree To Testify Before Congress

Bill and Hillary Clinton have agreed to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as part of the panel's investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

It's a remarkable reversal for the former president and secretary of state, who had defied committee-issued subpoenas and risked imprisonment by the Trump Justice Department as the House prepared to vote Wednesday to hold them in contempt of Congress.

After both skipped their scheduled depositions earlier this year, the Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis in January to approve a contempt measure for each of them.

Although both have said they had no knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, they have maintained that the subpoenas were not tied to a legitimate legislative purpose, rendering them invalid. They also argued that the GOP-led exercise was designed to embarrass and put them in jail.

It is not immediately clear when they would appear and if the House will continue to go ahead with the contempt votes anyway.

“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,” House Oversight Chair James Comer said in a statement Monday. “The only reason they have said they agree to terms is because the House has moved forward with contempt. I will clarify the terms they are agreeing to and then discuss next steps with my committee members.”

Comer’s office received an email from the Clintons’ legal team announcing the couple's decision while he was in the middle of testifying before the House Rules Committee to tee up consideration of the contempt resolutions in the coming days, according to a GOP committee aide.

Democrats warned House Republicans not to proceed.

"If you try to move forward, that would be insane," the top Democrat on House Oversight, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, told reporters. "I mean, that would be unprecedented. It would be clearly — it would be clearly a demonstration that [Chair James] Comer is actually not interested in hearing the Clintons, but he's only interested in political games. I think that would be a huge disservice to the survivors and to the investigation.”

Rep. Suhan Subramanyam (D-Va.), a member of the Oversight panel, also said he feared Republicans would still go through with the House vote for a political end.

"The Republicans want to give Trump the ability to prosecute and put the Clintons in jail," he said in a brief interview. "That's what this is really about. This isn't about the Epstein investigation.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested to reporters the Clintons were in a lose-lose situation no matter what happens.

“This is a snake pit. It's a snake pit,” she said. ‘So it's not a question of whether you have to come in. That’s just the way it is.”

Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.