Testimony from Bill and Hillary Clinton as part of the congressional probe into the Jeffrey Epstein case is already raising a bigger political question. Could it lead to scrutiny of the current president and first lady over their own connections to the late financier?
Hillary Clinton told lawmakers that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein, who died in prison while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Bill Clinton is expected to testify about his past relationship with Epstein, who was once a friend of President Donald Trump and an associate of Melania Trump.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said the move carries political implications that could reach beyond the former first couple.
“Precedent in Congress is only as strong as whoever holds the majority,” said CNN’s Elie Honig, “but we’ve heard Democratic members of this Oversight Committee say if [they] take over in November, which certainly could happen, [they] then plan to subpoena Donald Trump. Now, the response from the Republican side has been, well but the sitting president is different than a former president, and there’s something to that.
There are many legal settings where the courts give the sitting president more privileges, more exemptions, more immunities than a former president. So we’ll see if the Democrats take over. But it certainly gives them a political mechanism to say, well, hey you subpoenaed the Democratic former president, we want to subpoena the Republican former president.”
Honig also pointed out that Melania Trump does not enjoy the same legal protections as a sitting president.
“But Melania is an interesting one, too, right, because the justification, part of the justification for Hillary Clinton is neither of them are president but, well, she knows something about her husband’s activities,” Honig said. “That same rationale would certainly apply in reverse to Melania. So, again, if the Dems take over that could be a subpoena they’re considering.”
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton’s testimony is expected to draw significant attention. The former president appears in a photo released by the Department of Justice swimming with Ghislaine Maxwell and reclining in a hot tub next to a person whose face is blacked out.
Honig said Clinton’s long experience under questioning may shape how he handles the moment.
“Bill Clinton is a notoriously difficult subject to be questioned,” Honig said. “The man is a lawyer, he was president. He’s been questioned by prosecutors and lawyers and the media countless times when they prepared for the 1998 grand jury testimony in front of Ken Starr sounds like similar to what the reporting is about, how they’ve prepared for this testimony they’ve spent hours upon hours, days upon days getting ready for this like it was a boxing match or a chess match, and the thing they did in ’98 – and I would watch for this today – is they had Bill Clinton prepared with about a dozen what they called set pieces, meaning pre-rehearsed speeches or talking points that he would use, and there’s a couple reasons for that.”
“One, they want to keep him on message, and two, they want to run out the clock,” he added. “Bill Clinton is really good at taking over these settings and filibustering and running down the time allotted.”