Clinton is grilled over 27 trips on Epstein’s private jet and pedophile’s 17 visits to the White House

Democrats have pledged to grill Bill Clinton with ‘hard questions’ about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein but launched renewed attacks on Donald Trump.

Clinton, 79, is being deposed on Friday at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center in Westchester County, New York, where Hillary yesterday faced a grilling.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers spoke to reporters before the hearing got underway, with both sides lobbing grenades at each other.

Democrats were adamant that while Clinton had questions to answer, Trump should be in the hot seat after he was named extensively in the Epstein files.

Democratic Virginia Representative James Walkinshaw said: ‘Anybody who had a significant relationship with Jeffrey Epstein should explain what if anything and when they knew about the crimes that were being committed.’

‘We’re committed to asking tough questions about that today,’ he added.

Walkinshaw and other Democratic lawmakers also demanded Republicans force Trump to testify under oath about his relationship to Epstein. 

Trump is facing mounting scrutiny to testify after multiple outlets reported that the Justice Department withheld dozens of FBI interview documents containing sexual assault allegations against him.

Republican Oversight Chairman James Comer vowed to investigate Bill over his relationship with Epstein after the former first lady declined to answer questions about her husband’s ties to the financier.

‘There were at least a dozen times when she said, “You’ll have to ask my husband that. I can’t answer that,”‘ Comer said.

Comer said he would ask him about Epstein’s 17 visits to the White House while Clinton was in office, as well as the former president 27 trips on the pedophile’s private jet.  

Clinton is the first ever former president compelled to testify before Congress against his will. The 79-year-old finally agreed to testify after being threatened with contempt charges.

While Hillary told lawmakers she never met Epstein and only Ghislaine Maxwell on a few occasions, Bill has to answer to far more damning evidence.

Photos released by Congress and the Department of Justice over the last few months show the former president on a private jet with his arm around a young woman, swimming with Maxwell and relaxing in a hot tub with another unidentified woman .

Clinton and Epstein were associated from the early 1990s and into the early 2000s.

He says he flew on Epstein’s private plane during Clinton Foundation trips before the financier was charged with any sex crimes but denies wrongdoing and says he cut ties years before Epstein’s 2006 arrest for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

No evidence has emerged implicating either Bill or Hillary Clinton in criminal conduct related to Epstein .

Hillary said Thursday that she expected her husband to testify that he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse at the time they knew each other.

Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee, predicted Thursday that the ex-president’s deposition will take ‘even longer’.

‘The Clintons haven’t answered very many, if any, questions about their knowledge or involvement with Epstein and Maxwell,’ he added.

‘No one’s accusing, at this moment, the Clintons of any wrongdoing,’ he added.

Republicans have wanted to question Clinton about Epstein for years, especially as conspiracy theories arose following Epstein’s 2019 suicide in a New York jail cell while he faced sex trafficking charges.

Those calls reached a fever pitch late last year, when the new DOJ photos revealed new depths to the well-publicized Epstein relationship.

Epstein visited the Clinton White House at least 17 times between 1993 and 1995 and the pair later made international trips together for their humanitarian work.

In the lead-up to the deposition, Clinton has insisted he had limited knowledge about Epstein and was unaware of any sexual abuse he committed.

In a declaration to lawmakers last month, Clinton admitted flying on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003 while he was traveling internationally for the Clinton Foundation. 

Clinton said Epstein ‘offered a plane that was big enough to accommodate me, my staff and my US Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation’s philanthropic work.’

The former president said he never visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, where many of the pedophile’s accusers say they were trafficked for abuse.

Maxwell said in an interview with the Justice Department last year that Clinton was never there.

‘I do not recall speaking to Mr. Epstein for more than a decade prior to his 2019 arrest’ Clinton’s declaration said.

Hillary said after her deposition: ‘I think the chronology of the connection that he had with Epstein ended several years before anything about Epstein’s criminal activities came to light.’

Comer has pledged extensive questioning of the former president. He claimed that Hillary had repeatedly deferred questions about Epstein to her husband.

Epstein was found hanged in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence as his only co-conspirator ever convicted. 

Democrats argue that it sets a precedent that should also apply to Donald Trump, a Republican who had his own relationship with Epstein. 

Only four ex-presidents – Trump, Harry Truman, John Tyler and John Quincy Adams – and one sitting president, Richard Nixon, have been formally subpoenaed by Congress to testify. Trump, Truman, Nixon, and Quincy Adams all refused to comply, while Tyler agreed to appear.

The Supreme Court has never definitively ruled on whether a president can be compelled to give testimony to Congress, though the DOJ has historically argued that presidents have ‘testimonial immunity’ to protect the separation of powers. 

‘We’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of Oversight Republicans and Democrats,’ Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, said Thursday.

Comer has pushed back on that idea, saying that Trump has answered questions on Epstein from the press.

Democrats are also calling for the resignation of Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Lutnick was a longtime neighbor of Epstein in New York City but said on a podcast that he severed ties with Epstein following a 2005 tour of Epstein’s home that disturbed Lutnick and his wife.

The public release of case files showed that Lutnick actually had two engagements with Epstein years later.

He attended a 2011 event at Epstein’s home, and in 2012, his family had lunch with Epstein on his private island.

A new photo emerged last night that appeared to have been deleted by the Justice Department, showing Lutnick on Epstein’s private island. 

The apparent removal of the photo sparked renewed calls for Lutnick to testify and deepening concerns over the alleged cover-up by the Trump administration. 

‘He should be removed from office and at a minimum should come before the committee,’ Garcia said of Lutnick.

Comer on Thursday said that it was ‘very possible’ that Lutnick would be called to testify.