House committee okays Bill and Hillary Clinton contempt resolutions

by · UPI

Jan. 21 (UPI) -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday okayed contempt of Congress resolutions for Bill and Hillary Clinton for refusing to testify about Jeffrey Epstein.

The committee voted 34-8 to approve the contempt resolution against former President Bill Clinton and 28-15 in favor of the contempt resolution for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Both resolutions received bipartisan support, with nine Democrats voting for the former president's contempt resolution and three for the former Secretary of State's contempt resolution.

All Republican members of the committee voted in favor of both contempt resolutions.

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The nine Democrats who voted in favor of Bill Clinton's contempt resolution include Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida, Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, Lateefa Simon of California and Emily Randall of Washington.

Also supporting that resolution were Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley and Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, and Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico. Two, Reps. Dave Min of California and Yassamin Ansari of Washington voted "present."

Tlaib, Stansbury and Lee also voted in favor of the resolution against Hillary Clinton, while Min voted "present."

Committee chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., was pleased with the bipartisan support for both resolutions.

"I'm very happy that we had a bipartisan vote today to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress," Comer said, as reported by The Hill. "This shows that no one's above the law."

He said that he anticipated some bipartisan support from committee Democrats and is "very, very proud of the ones who did."

The former president did not show up for a scheduled deposition regarding his relationship with Epstein on Jan. 13, and neither did any of the committee's Democratic Party members.

Hillary Clinton did not show up for her scheduled deposition on Jan. 14.

The committee had given both Clintons several months of advance notice for their respective hearings at the Rayburn Office Building in Washington, D.C., but Bill Clinton rescheduled his deposition twice before not appearing last week.

The former president appears in photos with Epstein and others.

Epstein was a financier and convicted sex offender who hung himself while jailed in New York City in 2019 and awaiting a federal trial on child sex trafficking charges.

The Clintons recently wrote Comer to say the subpoenas issued for each of them are not "legally valid" and they won't appear at any deposition hearings.

The measures go to the House floor for consideration and, if passed, could result in charges against both Clintons and time in jail if they are found guilty.