Hillary Clinton told the BBC that she and former President Bill Clinton have "no links" to Jeffrey Epstein, pushing back on the resurfacing of their names in documents tied to the convicted sex offender and his convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
The Department of Justice released Epstein-related materials, including flight logs and photos showing Bill Clinton.
CBS News reported that the former Secretary of State said she does not recall ever meeting Epstein. She acknowledged meeting Maxwell "on a few occasions." Both Clintons are now scheduled to testify before Congress: Hillary on February 26, Bill on February 27.
This comes after both declined to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this year.
Clinton's BBC interview carried all the hallmarks of a carefully staged preemptive defense. She framed the Clintons' presence in Epstein-related records as unremarkable, claiming "thousands of public figures appear in similar records." She characterized Bill Clinton's travel on Epstein's private jet as charity work. And she tried to redirect attention away from the Clintons entirely.
"They are accused, and in both cases, were convicted of horrific crimes against girls and women. That should be the focus."
It's a neat rhetorical trick: invoke the victims to avoid answering questions about your own proximity to the perpetrators.
Nobody disputes that Epstein and Maxwell committed monstrous crimes. The question is why the Clintons kept turning up in the orbit of people committing them, and why straight answers have been so difficult to come by for so many years.
Clinton also told the BBC that she was "more than happy to say what we know, which is very limited and totally unrelated to their behavior or their crimes." Happy to talk, apparently, but not happy enough to accept the House Oversight Committee's earlier invitation.
The sequencing matters here. The Clintons refused to appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when the ask was voluntary.
Now they are scheduled to testify before Congress as part of a formal inquiry. There is a meaningful difference between volunteering to clear your name and being compelled to show up.
If the Clintons' involvement was truly "very limited and totally unrelated," the simplest move would have been to appear early, answer questions, and put the matter to rest. That is what innocent people with nothing to hide tend to do. Instead, the Clintons ran the clock until congressional authority forced the issue.
This pattern is not new. For decades, the Clinton approach to scandal has followed the same rhythm: deny, delay, reframe, and when cornered, cooperate just enough to claim transparency while offering as little substance as possible.
The DOJ's released materials include flight logs and photos. Bill Clinton's name appears in those records. Hillary Clinton's explanation is that her husband's travel on Epstein's jet was for charity purposes.
That characterization comes from Hillary Clinton alone. No independent verification appears in the record.
The American public is asked to take the word of one Clinton to explain the conduct of another Clinton, regarding a convicted sex trafficker's private aircraft. That is not transparency. That is a family press operation.
The flight logs exist. The photos exist. The DOJ released them. Whatever "charity work" explanation the Clintons offer under oath next week will face a level of scrutiny that a friendly BBC interview does not provide.
February 26 and 27 will mark something genuinely unusual: both halves of America's most famous political couple testifying before Congress on consecutive days about their connections to a sex trafficking ring. The gravity of that fact should not be softened by Hillary Clinton's media tour.
The real test is not what the Clintons say in front of cameras on a British news set. It is what they say under oath, under questioning, with the weight of congressional authority behind every question. Clinton told the BBC she has "a very clear record" she's been willing to talk about. Congress will decide whether the record is as clear as she claims.
The Clintons have spent decades operating on the assumption that proximity to scandal never quite becomes accountability for it. That assumption walks into a congressional hearing room next week.
