Bill Clinton just called the House GOP’s bluff, and now we’re about to find out if Congress actually has teeth.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee announced Tuesday that it will seek to hold the former president in contempt of Congress after he failed to show up for a scheduled deposition about his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The move sets up what could become a historic constitutional showdown over congressional subpoena power.
The No-Show Heard Round Capitol Hill
Clinton was supposed to sit for a closed-door deposition Tuesday morning. Hillary Clinton was scheduled for Wednesday. Neither plans to appear.
Instead, the Clintons sent an eight-page letter to Committee Chairman James Comer that read less like a legal filing and more like a declaration of war: “Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences. For us, now is that time.”
That’s not the language of people planning to negotiate.
“As a result of Bill Clinton not showing up for his lawful subpoena, which again was voted unanimously by the committee in a bipartisan manner, we will move next week in the House Oversight Committee markup to hold former President Clinton in contempt of Congress,” Comer told reporters Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill.
A Long Road To This Moment
The subpoenas were first issued back in August 2025 after a bipartisan voice vote by the Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement. The Clintons have been playing calendar games ever since.
Originally scheduled for December, the depositions were postponed when the Clintons’ attorney, David Kendall, informed the committee they needed to attend a funeral. Comer says Kendall refused to provide alternative dates, so the committee unilaterally set January 13 and 14.
Clinton spokesperson Angel Ureña has maintained that the former president offered the same accommodation given to others: written statements instead of in-person testimony. “For months, we’ve been offering the same exact thing he accepted from the rest, but he refuses and won’t explain why,” Ureña said in December. “Make of that what you will.”
Comer isn’t having it. In his letter to Kendall, the chairman argued the Clintons aren’t similarly situated to others who’ve been allowed to skip in-person appearances. Those individuals, he wrote, either “lacked any relevant information” or had “serious health issues.” The Clintons, by contrast, “had a personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.”
The Selective Enforcement Problem
Here’s where this gets complicated. Of all the individuals subpoenaed in this investigation, including former FBI Director James Comey and multiple former attorneys general, only two have actually shown up in person: former Trump administration Attorney General Bill Barr and former Trump administration Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.
Kendall has accused Comer of pursuing “weaponized legislative investigations” and holding the Clintons to a different standard than others. He’s argued the committee is targeting the former first couple “to catalyze a public spectacle for partisan purposes.”
Whether that’s true or not, the optics aren’t great for Republicans. The investigation has also surfaced uncomfortable material about the current president. DOJ files released in December revealed Trump flew on Epstein’s jet at least eight times, though neither Clinton nor Trump has been implicated in any wrongdoing related to Epstein’s crimes.
What Contempt Actually Means
Contempt of Congress is no small thing. Just ask Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, both Trump associates who were sentenced to prison for defying subpoenas from the January 6 select committee.
The process typically works like this: The committee votes to hold someone in contempt, the full House votes to approve it, and then the matter gets referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. A conviction can carry fines and up to a year in prison.
There’s also the nuclear option: inherent contempt, a rarely used power that would allow Congress to send the Capitol Police to arrest the Clintons and bring them before Congress. Some Republicans have floated this possibility, though it would be an extraordinary escalation.
The Bigger Picture
This confrontation is happening against the backdrop of a larger battle over Epstein transparency. Congress passed legislation requiring the DOJ to release all Epstein-related files, but the department has been releasing them in heavily redacted batches and missed its December 19 deadline.
A bipartisan coalition led by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna has threatened to hold Attorney General Pam Bondi in inherent contempt for the delays. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded on Meet the Press with two words: “Bring it on.”
No former president has been compelled to testify before Congress. The last to appear voluntarily was Gerald Ford in 1983. Trump was subpoenaed by the January 6 committee in 2022, but that subpoena was withdrawn and he never testified.
The Clintons appear ready to make this a fight about the limits of congressional power. Whether Comer and House Republicans have the appetite for that battle, and whether the Justice Department would actually prosecute a former president for contempt, remains to be seen.
For now, the stage is set for a markup vote next week. After that, the real drama begins.