Hillary Clinton on Thursday said she has no knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and urged lawmakers to focus their energies on other people associated with the convicted sex offender, including Elon Musk.
In a combative four-page opening statement, the former secretary of state blasted the House Oversight Committee for calling her to testify as part of their probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. The well-connected financier died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Clinton on Thursday called the committee’s probe “partisan political theatre,” saying she doesn’t recall ever having met Epstein.
“I do not recall ever encountering Mr. Epstein. I never flew on his plane or visited his island, homes, or offices,” she said.
She proceeded to rip into the committee’s members, accusing them of not doing more to end human trafficking or seek justice for Epstein’s victims.
“A committee endeavoring to stop human trafficking would seek to understand what specific steps are needed to fix a system that allowed Epstein to get away with his crimes in 2008,” she said.
“It would ensure that the lawful reductions of those files protected the victims and survivors, not powerful men in political allies,” she added.
“It would subpoena anyone who asked on which night there would be the ‘wildest party’ on Epstein Island,” she said in a not-so-veiled reference to Musk.
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Emails released by the Department of Justice on January 30 showed Musk asking that very question while discussing plans to visit Epstein’s Caribbean island in 2012.
“What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk asked in the November 2012 email chain.
The question was in response to an email from Epstein offering to send a helicopter to whisk the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to his private island in the Caribbean.
“how many people will you be for the heli to island,” Epstein asked Musk in an email exchange. Musk said he’d need just two seats — for himself and his then-partner, Tallulah Riley.
The DOJ’s files have not revealed any communications suggesting that Musk knew about Epstein’s crimes. Musk has denied visiting the island. A representative for the Tesla CEO didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Clinton’s husband, former President of the United States Bill Clinton, has been prominently featured in the DOJ’s Epstein files, including numerous photos of the two men together.
Bill Clinton is expected to testify before the committee in Chappaqua, NY, where the Clintons live, on Friday. He has previously said he travelled on Epstein’s plane four times, in 2002 and 2003, while on trips for the Clinton Foundation.
DOJ’s Epstein files
Hillary Clinton has previously acknowledged a relationship with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for participating in Epstein’s trafficking of young women.
On Thursday, she said she had no knowledge of Maxwell’s crimes.
“The committee justified its subpoena to me, based on its assumptions that I have information regarding the investigations into the criminal activities of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell,” she said. “Let me be as clear as I can. I do not.”
