Former President Bill Clinton defied his congressional subpoena on Tuesday, refusing to appear before the House Oversight Committee. Chairman James Comer (R-KY) will now move to hold Clinton in contempt of Congress after previously threatening to do so.
“I think everyone knows by now Bill Clinton did not show up. And I think it’s important to note that this subpoena was voted on in a bipartisan manner by this committee,” Comer told reporters, adding, “No one’s accusing Bill Clinton of any wrongdoing. We just have questions. And that’s why the Democrats voted, along with Republicans, to subpoena Bill Clinton.”
“We will move next week in the House Oversight Committee markup to hold Bill Clinton in contempt of Congress,” Comer declared.
Clinton shared a letter addressed to Comer on social media, also signed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling the subpoenas “legally invalid.”
“Despite everything that needs to be done to help our country, you are on the cusp of bringing Congress to a halt to pursue a rarely used process literally designed to result in our imprisonment,” the letter adds. “This is not the way out of America’s ills, and we will forcefully defend ourselves.”
The Clintons’ lawyers also sent a letter to Comer, condemning that the chairman’s “continued insistence that the former President and Secretary of State can be compelled to appear before the Committee under these circumstances, however, brings us toward a protracted and unnecessary legal confrontation that distracts from the principal work of the Congress with respect to this matter, which, if conducted sincerely, could help ensure the victims of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell are afforded some measure of justice for the crimes perpetrated against them, however late.”
The Clintons previously refused to appear for their depositions on December 17 and December 18, prompting the Committee to move the date to January.
This article originally appeared on American Faith and is reposted with permission.
