This is an adapted excerpt from the Feb. 6 episode of “Morning Joe.”
Hillary Clinton is calling on Republicans to hold a public hearing after she and her husband, Bill Clinton, agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee regarding its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
“For six months, we engaged Republicans on the Oversight Committee in good faith,” she wrote on X. “We told them what we know, under oath.
“They ignored all of it. They moved the goalposts and turned accountability into an exercise in distraction.”
The former secretary of state also directly addressed the panel’s chairman, Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky:
So let’s stop the games. If you want this fight, @RepJamesComer, let’s have it — in public.
You love to talk about transparency. There’s nothing more transparent than a public hearing, cameras on.
We will be there.
There’s a reason Republicans don’t want Hillary Clinton testifying in public. They know how good she is under pressure. We all remember her marathon testimony before the House Select Committee in 2015 on the Benghazi attack. For 11 hours, she took question after question and held up under intense scrutiny.
While the Clintons’ names were included in the released files, the names of so many other powerful associates of Epstein have been redacted with no real explanations from the Justice Department.
If the Clintons do get a public hearing, there’s a chance for Democrats to seize on this. Republicans are the ones keeping the Epstein files front and center, and the American people still have a lot of questions.
Democrats should use it as an opportunity to ask Comer — and all the Republicans on the committee — why Attorney General Pam Bondi isn’t the one sitting in front of them, explaining why the DOJ chose to redact so many names. That’s what Americans are upset about. They’re upset about the victims being exposed, but they’re also upset about the fact that the release is still hiding the very people this entire controversy is about: the rich and the powerful. The administration is hiding those who most need to be exposed. Now, the truth is, I don’t think Comer will ever give the Clintons a public hearing. He knows the risks are too high. But eventually, even a transcript from a closed-door deposition will be made public. Democrats have an opportunity here to get some answers for the American people and put Republicans’ hypocritical calls for transparency on full display. Allison Detzel contributed.
Claire McCaskill
Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, was the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Missouri. She is currently an MSNBC and NBC News political analyst. Recommended
