Hillary Clinton accuses Republicans of ‘fishing expedition’ in Epstein testimony | Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton delivered a sharp rebuke to a congressional committee investigating her alleged contacts with Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, accusing the committee’s Republican members of going on a “fishing expedition” to cover up and divert attention from Donald Trump’s actions.

In an angry opening statement at the beginning of his testimony to the House oversight committee, the former secretary of state claimed the event was “partisan political theater” and an “insult to the American people” while repeating his insistence that he had never met Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker who died in 2019.

“In order to divert attention from President Trump’s actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for response, you forced me to testify, fully aware that I had no information that would assist your investigation,” he said, according to statements he shared during the closed-door deposition.

Clinton’s attack came on the first day of the hearing on Friday, which will also include testimony from her husband, former US president Bill Clinton. The hearing is being held at an arts center near the couple’s home in Chappaqua, upstate New York.

The Clintons reluctantly agreed to participate in response to a subpoena from the committee’s Republican chairman, James Comer, after they were threatened with contempt of Congress charges.

In her opening statement, Clinton argued that the trial was “designed to protect a political party and a public official rather than to seek truth and justice for victims and survivors.”

Referencing his career campaigning against sex trafficking, he added: “If this committee is serious about finding out the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it will not rely on press jokes to get answers from our current president about his involvement; it will question him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he appears in the Epstein files.

“If the majority were serious, no time would be wasted on fishing trips. There is a lot to be done. What is being prevented? Who is being protected? So why the cover-up?”

Both Clintons have previously complained that they were unfairly singled out to distract public attention from Trump, with whom they had a long friendship with Epstein before his split. They asked that the deposition be given publicly, rather than released later in video and accompanying transcripts as planned.

Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify Friday under the same circumstances as representatives investigate connections to the late financier and pedophile that he acknowledged and were confirmed in the Epstein files released by the justice department under congressional authority.

Committee members traveled to Chappaqua for the hearings after reaching an agreement that the Clintons would not have to testify on Capitol Hill. Written transcripts and video footage of the statements are expected to be published in the coming days.

Addressing reporters outside the Chappaqua arts center where the Clinton hearings were held, Republicans and Democrats vied for control of the narrative about the files.

Comer accused them of trying to avoid willful subpoenas of other public figures, including Bill Barr and Alex Acosta, members of the early Trump administration.

“The Clintons have not answered many questions, if any, about their involvement with or knowledge of Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell [Epstein’s former partner and convicted co-conspirator]Comer said: “Again, no one is accusing the Clintons of any wrongdoing at this time, they will be given due process. But we have a lot of questions, and the purpose of the entire investigation is to try to understand a lot of things about Epstein.”

Robert Garcia, one of the committee’s top Democrats, told reporters that he supports asking Bill Clinton to speak to the committee, but that Democrats will now demand Trump testify after the disclosures that files alleging a woman sexually assaulted him when he was a minor were excluded from the released documents.

“Now that we will hear from former President Clinton, I hope that Chairman Comer and Republicans will join us in demanding that the person who appears in the files more than the former president we want to talk to is President Donald Trump,” he said. “Let’s get President Trump before our committee and answer questions from survivors across this country who were brutally assaulted and raped, sometimes as children.”

Hillary Clinton’s call, in particular, led to accusations that the statements were a partisan exercise aimed at deflecting examination of Trump’s long-standing relationship with Epstein.

James Walkenshaw, a Virginia Democrat who sits on the committee, said: “There is no indication that Secretary Clinton had any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes – zero, zero, nothing at all. My fear is that we are here today as part of a political exercise, part of a long-standing fever dream in which Republicans want to put Secretary Clinton in jail.”

Unlike her husband, former New York senator Hillary Clinton denied meeting Epstein, although she acknowledged meeting Maxwell several times.

“The biggest indication of the partisan intent behind this incident is that they subpoenaed Hillary Clinton, who had nothing to offer and had never met or communicated with Jeffrey Epstein, and threatened her with criminal defamation,” said Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime confidant of the Clintons and the Guardian columnist.

“He knows absolutely nothing. So for you to do this to him and tie him to it shows exactly what their goal is.”

Both Clintons have deep experience facing Republican-led investigations and have often emerged from more politically powerful positions.

Hillary Clinton testified for nine hours to a House select committee investigating the deadly 2015 terrorist attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans while she was secretary of state. His appearance was widely credited with neutralizing Republican attacks and boosting his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Blumenthal, who also testified under subpoena at the panel in 2015, predicted that he would emerge from the recent hearings unharmed.

“Hillary confronted Trey Gowdy [a former Republican representative and the select committee chair] “At the end of the day, he looked ridiculous,” he said. “Trey Gowdy is an intellectual giant compared to James Comer.”

Bill Clinton gave two affidavits as a result of a Republican-directed independent counsel investigation in 1998.

One of them involved sexual harassment allegations brought by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee. He also testified to the grand jury amid allegations that his testimony at a previous hearing about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky amounted to perjury and obstruction of justice.

The former president has denied any wrongdoing and called for the release of all files related to Epstein. Approximately 3 million documents are believed to still be in the possession of the Justice Department, in violation of the terms of the Epstein Transparency Act.

Clinton admits to flying four times on Epstein’s private plan, nicknamed the “Lolita Express,” and is featured in several photos in the files, including one showing her and Epstein in a jacuzzi with an identified woman.

He says he cut ties with Epstein in 2006 after the financier’s sexual crimes came to light.

Hillary Clinton accused the Trump administration of engaging in an “ongoing cover-up” of the files.