Former President Bill Clinton faced multiple questions surrounding a Jeffrey Epstein-related photo that showed him soaking in a hot tub with an unknown woman.
During his four-and-a-half-hour deposition before the House Oversight Committee last week, Clinton was handed the hot tub photo. The woman’s face was redacted in the Justice Department’s Epstein files dump.
The former president, who took dozens of trips with Epstein in the early 2000s, said that the photo was taken in Brunei, a small country in Southeast Asia. Clinton testified that he does not remember who the woman in the photo is.
“I had forgotten that there was anybody in the hot tub,” Clinton told lawmakers, adding, “I don’t know who that is.”
Asked if he engaged in any sexual activity with the woman in the photo, Clinton responded, “No.”
Image via Justice Department
Clinton said the hot tub was in the same area as a large pool where other people were swimming when the photo was taken. Asked if anyone in the pool area was a minor, Clinton said, “No.” He also said that he believes a Secret Service agent was “at the other end of the pool.” Another photo released by the Justice Department shows Clinton swimming in the pool with Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and a woman whose face was redacted.
Clinton said the pool area was not public and was on a hotel floor next to multiple suites where the former president and his team were staying on invitation from the sultan of Brunei. Clinton testified that he swam in the pool and enjoyed the hot tub for a brief time late at night before going to bed.
“I swam around, I sat in the hot tub for five minutes or whatever it was, and I got up and went to bed,” he said.
Image via Justice Department
Clinton joined Epstein on the financier’s infamous airplane at least 26 times. Many of the trips were part of Clinton’s global AIDS initiative, according to the former president.
Clinton testified that he took his final flight on Epstein’s “Lolita Express” in 2003, five years before Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a child for prostitution. Asked why he stopped traveling with the well-connected financier, Clinton said that after his AIDS initiative “picked up steam,” he began receiving offers from other people he “knew better” and “really cared about the work” who wanted to help with transportation.
“I thought Mr. Epstein was an interesting man, but I didn’t think he was really interested in what I was doing,” he added. Clinton said he had an agreement with Epstein. The late financier would provide the private jet for transportation. On those trips, Clinton said he would chat with Epstein about politics and economics.
“He never asked me anything untoward,” Clinton said of Epstein. “It’s just I thought I had done what I promised, what I promised to do, and he had done what he promised to do. And I’ve always, over the years, with donors, tried not to overstay my welcome.”
Clinton said he first learned of Epstein’s sex crimes in 2008 when he pleaded guilty.
“There’s nothing that I saw when I was around him that made me realize he was trafficking women,” the former president added.
Watch Clinton’s full deposition:
.png)
.png)
