House Republicans are planning to rattle smooth-talking ex-President Bill Clinton during a deposition about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein next week by blitzing him with questions about his infamous photo in the disgraced financier’s hot tub, insiders told The Post.
“Even something as simple as that can solicit reactions,” one GOP aide told The Post of lawmakers’ plan for the closed-door, taped interviews with the former president and wife Hillary Clinton in Chappaqua that kick off Thursday.
“They’re going to bring up some of the images in the hot tub.”
The blockbuster Clinton depositions with the House Oversight Committee follow cascading revelations from the Epstein files including the stunning arrest Thursday of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over allegations that surfaced in the recent Department of Justice document dump.
It’s part of an effort to “get some layups early” to try to “knock him off his feet. He can’t say no. Everyone knows it’s him,” the source said.
It’s a strategy the GOP hopes will prompt Clinton to say something either revelatory or politically damaging as the Epstein scandal continues to unfold.
The damning photos also include bubba lounging with his hands behind his head near an unidentified woman whose face is blacked out.
Another snap shows a ruddy-faced Clinton with his arm around an unidentified blonde woman perched in his lap. And other images show him sporting a red hoodie alongside a woman whose face is blacked out, or grinning with Epstein while both wear wildly pattered silk shirts.
“The Clintons’ testimony is critical to understanding Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell’s sex trafficking network and the ways they sought to curry favor and influence to shield themselves from scrutiny,” Oversight panel Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) told The Post.
The political power couple — who have not been formally accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein — have long tried to downplay their ties to the disgraced financier.
The committee also aims to grill the couple on Ghislaine Maxwell’s role in the early origins of their Clinton Global Initiative – connecting the Clintons’ signature global do-gooder crusade with Epstein cash.
Maxwell, convicted in 2021 of sexual abuse of minors, was involved in the organization’s 2004 launch, according to the DOJ document dump. She was also an “honored guest” at a September 2013 CGI event.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is slated to testify Feb. 26 while Bill is scheduled for the following day, will be forced to defend her recent comments to the BBC that the couple “have no links” to Epstein.
“Their testimony may also inform how Congress can strengthen laws to better combat human trafficking. Our goal for this investigation is straightforward: we seek to deliver transparency and accountability for the American people and for survivors.”
Panel member Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina), who has crusaded against sexual predators, plans to drill down on Hillary’s Feb. 17 interview with the BBC. Questioning will be led by committee staff, but lawmakers are entitled to attend and ask questions.
Mace telegraphed another one of her questions online in February in response to a Clinton post: “Were you ever alone with any of the women you were seen photographed with?”
Both depositions will take place in the Clintons’ adopted home town of Chappaqua in Westchester County “as an accommodation for their schedules,” according to a committee spokeswoman.
That comes despite Hillary’s claim that, “I just want it to be fair – I want everybody treated the same way.” While it is not unheard of for committee depositions to take place out of DC – Epstein patron billionaire Les Wexner, 88, did his at home in Ohio – witnesses typically must brave the media and the public to appear in a congressional office building.
Bill can’t rely on the committee’s Democrats to throw him a life raft.
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Nine of them voted to hold him in contempt in January when his lawyers were resisting a subpoena. Three voted to do the same in Hillary Clinton’s case.
But the former president, who had no fewer than six lawyers listed on correspondence to the committee, will have his own secret weapon.
His lead lawyer is Ashley Callen, former counsel for House Speaker Mike Johnson, now with Jenner & Block LLC. She knows key committee members and staff from her time in the House of Representatives
Longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall, of Williams & Connolly LLC, is also representing him.
Clinton’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. He posted on X this month during a standoff over the terms of the deposition, saying he refused to be “a prop in a closed-door kangaroo court.”
“I have called for the full release of the Epstein files. I have provided a sworn statement of what I know. And just this week, I’ve agreed to appear in person before the committee. But it’s still not enough for Republicans on the House Oversight Committee.”
The Clintons’ answers will be closely watched in DC. The couple have their own reputations to protect, and revelations from the files have taken down multiple figures in the US and abroad.
The committee is expected to quickly release the full video deposition to the public, allowing people to judge for themselves how one of the nation’s most powerful couples holds up under scrutiny.
