Republicans question Hillary Clinton about UFOs and

Hillary Clinton told lawmakers during a statement Thursday that their subpoena for her testimony about Jeffrey Epstein is a distraction from President Donald Trump’s relationship with the moneymaker and sexual predator.

In an initial statement she posted online, Clinton said she had no information about Epstein’s crimes and did not remember ever meeting him.

Clinton accused Republicans of forcing her to testify “fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist their investigation, in order to distract from President Trump’s actions and cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers.”

Like former President Bill Clinton, Trump socialized with Epstein and his name appears in all Justice Department files. This week, Democrats have pointed to evidence that some FBI files potentially chronicling an indictment against Trump appear to be missing from a public database, in violation of a disclosure law.

Despite having no direct connection to Epstein, Clinton faced hours of questions from members of the House Oversight Committee. He described the questioning as repetitive and, at times, ridiculous.

“I don’t know how many times I had to say that I didn’t know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his house, I never went to his offices,” Clinton told reporters.

“In the end, it became quite unusual, because they started asking me about UFOs and a series of questions about ‘Pizzagate,’ one of the most vile and false conspiracy theories that spread on the Internet, which served as the basis for questions that a member asked me,” Clinton said.

“Pizzagate,” a predecessor to the broader QAnon conspiracy theory, posited that top Democratic officials ran a child sex trafficking ring from a pizzeria in northwest Washington — imaginary crimes with some similarities to the real-life crimes carried out by Epstein.

David Dee Delgado via Getty Images

Lawmakers on the Oversight Committee traveled to New York to take depositions Thursday and Friday with both Clintons. Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said from the beginning that he knew Hillary Clinton’s statement would be long and that he hoped her husband’s would be “even longer.”

After the hearing, Comer said Clinton, a former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, answered most of lawmakers’ questions and that the meeting was “productive.” He said a video of the interview could be released within 24 hours.

The testimony was halted at one point in the afternoon after committee member Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) sent photos to right-wing influencer Benny Johnson of Clinton testifying. Boebert did this against committee rules. It was strange: No other legislator had leaked an image of a closed statement in recent years.

“We had a little challenge at the beginning, because we agreed to rules based on the fact that it was going to be a closed-door hearing at their request, and one of the members violated that rule, which was very disturbing,” Clinton said.

The Clintons have said they would prefer to testify in public, but Comer insisted on closed-door testimony, saying the committee could hold a public hearing later. But Clinton said Thursday that she didn’t want to go through all that again.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told reporters that Clinton had answered the committee’s questions and demonstrated that she had no relationship with Epstein or knowledge of his crimes. He said the committee should instead focus on the Trump administration withholding FBI files that could detail Trump’s sexual misconduct against a minor in the early 1980s.

“These are files that accuse the President of the United States of very, very serious allegations around sexual abuse, and the fact that they are not in the files that have apparently been deleted or discarded is incredibly troubling, which is why we are calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to make them public immediately,” Garcia said.

The Justice Department said Wednesday that it was “currently reviewing” whether it had more documents to release, and Comer said Republicans on the committee were also looking into it.

Garcia also said that the subpoenas to the Clintons “set a new precedent for talking to presidents and former presidents” and that Republicans should demand that Trump testify.

Supervision CThe committee approved subpoenas for the Clintons at the same time it approved a subpoena demanding that the Trump administration turn over its investigative files on Epstein, who died in 2019 while facing federal charges for sex trafficking of minors.

The votes were bipartisan, and when the Clintons initially resisted taking statements, Democrats joined with Republicans to promote a contempt resolution that could have led to criminal charges.

“We are not accusing Hillary Clinton of wrongdoing,” Comer said before the hearing. “We know that Jeffrey Epstein said many times in emails that he was the first person to raise money for the Clinton Initiative, the Clinton Foundation, who solicited money on some of his properties for the Clinton Foundation.”

One thing Comer wanted to know, he said, was why Maxwell had been invited to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010. After the statement, a reporter asked the former first lady the question.

“She came as a companion, the guest of someone who was invited,” Clinton said. And she left it at that.