The House Oversight Committee voted on Monday to hold former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas — and eight Democrats voted against the measure.
The eight Democrats who voted against — meaning they voted to allow the Clintons to ignore the subpoenas without penalty — were Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Shontel Brown (D-OH), Robert Garcia (D-CA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA), and James Walkinshaw (D-VA).
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley laid out his thoughts on the situation, naming the Democrats who voted against efforts to hold the Clintons to account.
…Here were the eight Democrats who voted to allow the Clintons to disregard lawfully issued subpoenas from the Committee: Wesley Bell; Shontel Brown; Robert Garcia; Ro Khanna; Kweisi Mfume; Eleanor Holmes Norton; Suhas Subramanyam; and James Walkinsaw.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) January 22, 2026
The Clintons were issued subpoenas after some of the most recent photos and documents released pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act shed a rather unflattering light on former President Clinton’s associations with the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
As some noted, Rep. Ro Khanna has been particularly insistent on getting to the bottom of everything and getting a full release of the Epstein documents — a fact that caused several eyebrows to raise when he was also among the Democrats suggesting it was fine for the Clintons to disregard congressional subpoenas on the matter.
The Clintons responded to the subpoenas with a lengthy letter explaining why they should not have to comply with requests to submit to the legal process.
The Clintons said in the letter that they believed the subpoenas to be “invalid” and had already given Congress all the information they had.
“There is no plausible explanation for what you are doing other than partisan politics,” the letter said.
Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) made it clear that he was not impressed, saying, “They have had five months to comply with this … We expect to hear from Bill Clinton, he is not above the law.”

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