Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to a congressional committee on Thursday that she had no new information regarding the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and that she does not recall ever having met the convicted child sex offender.

What did Hillary Clinton say in the Epstein probe?

In her opening statement, Clinton said the panel "justified its subpoena to me based on its assumption that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and [his convicted accomplice] Ghislaine Maxwell."

"Let me be as clear as I can," she said: "I do not."

The Republican-led House Oversight Committee, the main investigative committee of the US House of Representatives, interviewed the former First Lady behind closed doors in the hamlet of Chappaqua, New York, where she has a home with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"I had no idea about their criminal activities," Clinton said in the statement that she posted on social media. "I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island home or office."

Clinton deposition briefly halted

Clinton's deposition was briefly paused after a Republican lawmaker of the Oversight Committee leaked a photo from inside the deposition to a right-wing blogger who immediately shared it on social media. But the deposition resumed about thirty minutes after that.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told reporters before the deposition began that he planned to release the video and the transcript of the interview after approval.

"The purpose of the whole investigation is to try to understand many things about Epstein," he said afterwards, adding: "There were a lot of questions that we asked that we weren't satisfied with the answers that we that we got."

Clinton confident husband knew nothing of Epstein crimes

Former President Bill Clinton, who had a documented friendship with Epstein and who flew on his plane a few times in the early 2000s, is set to appear for his deposition on Friday. 

He has denied wrongdoing and expressed regret for his association with Epstein, and his wife Hillary said on Thursday that she was confident that he knew nothing about Epstein's crimes while the pair were still in contact.

"I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended years, several years, before anything about Epstein's criminal activities came to light," she said.

Asked if she was confident that her husband did not know of Epstein's abuse of minors or any other crimes, Clinton said: "I am."

Epstein files: Clinton turns focus to Trump

The depositions are extraordinary both in that they are compelling a former president to testify before a congressional committee and because congressional investigators also have the support of Democrats who have called for transparency.

The inquiry comes months after the Clintons refused to testify but relented when lawmakers moved to hold them in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena issued in August.

But on Thursday, Hillary Clinton used her forced appearance to go on the offensive and demand President Donald Trump testify about his own links to the sex offender.

"If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes ... it would ask [Trump] directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files," she said, accusing the panel of trying to "protect one public official."

Trump faces calls to testify on Epstein

The top Democrat on the committee, Robert Garcia, called on Trump to testify in order to "answer the questions that are being asked across this country from survivors."

Trump socialized extensively with Epstein in the 1990s and 2000s, before Epstein's 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor. But Comer said evidence gathered by the panel does not implicate Trump.

Undated photographs of Bill Clinton with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were released in December in the first tranche of documents released by Trump's Justice Department.

So far, the Justice Department has released more than three million pages of documents tied to Epstein to comply with a law, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed in 2025.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez