CNN Panel Laments Hillary Clinton Keeps ‘Having to Answer for Her Husband’s Behavior’: ‘Never Even Met’ Epstein

As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began her closed-door testimony before the House Oversight Committee on the topic of Jeffrey Epstein, a CNN panel lamented how she had repeatedly been expected to “answer for her husband’s behavior,” former President Bill Clinton, and had been hauled before this committee despite never meeting Epstein.

After mounting pressure — including from his fellow Republicans — President Donald Trump signed a law last November to release the files related to the deceased child sex predator and his girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell with a deadline of Dec. 19. The law required a wide release of millions of documents, photos, videos, and other files, with redactions limited to victims’ names and other identifying information.

The Department of Justice missed that initial deadline, but since then there have been additional releases of files that have included new revelations about rich and powerful people who were in communication with Epstein, including Trump, former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and Bill Clinton.

In advance of her deposition, Clinton released her opening statement, posting the text on her social media. In the statement, Clinton was adamant that she had no association with Epstein and had never visited any of his residences, including the infamous “Epstein Island.” She also lambasted Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) for refusing to let her testify in a public hearing.

Clinton’s deposition was later paused after Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) leaked a photo to MAGA influencer Benny Johnson. Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify Friday.

CNN anchor Dana Bash kicked off the panel discussion Thursday by reporting on Clinton’s opening statement before turning to Bloomberg columnist Nia-Malika Henderson.

“Republicans have long been obsessed with Hillary Clinton,” said Henderson, saying she was being called to testify as “just the latest chapter” of Republican and QAnon “Epstein conspiracy theories” that pushed “this idea that it was Democrats who had most involvement with Epstein.”

Henderson called it “quite ridiculous” that Clinton was testifying, since she had “never met Epstein” and “there are many more much more powerful men who did meet up in consort with Jeffrey Epstein — Howard Lutnick being one of them.”

She pointed out that Clinton had wanted her testimony to be public “so that Americans could see the ridiculousness of this,” and added that it “certainly feels like an attempt to humiliate and embarrass her.”

Bash commented that Clinton had also argued in her opening statement that if the committee “is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president [Trump] on his involvement” but instead “would ask him directly, under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.”

CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox called it “in some ways wasted time” to have Clinton testifying for hours “answering questions that she really doesn’t have any answers to.”

“Obviously, Republicans want to talk to Hillary Clinton,” Fox continued. “They have wanted to talk to her on a myriad of political issues over the course of the last several decades. This is their opportunity. And yet it is on an issue that she has literally nothing to do with. Her name does appear in the files — largely because she was running for president, and it it’s news links to those articles.”

Bash brought up a New York Times article by Annie Karni from that morning about how Clinton, “even after serving eight years in the Senate and four years as secretary of state, and running for president twice,” she “is still stuck in the awkward position” of “having to answer for her husband’s behavior,” which she had had to do for “Bill Clinton’s entire political life, which is Hillary Clinton’s entire adult life.”

Karni quoted Patti Solis Doyle , who served for years as an aide to Hillary Clinton, for her article; the quote was read on-air by Bash:

For almost the entirety of her married life, she has had to answer questions about her husband’s actions. She has supported him throughout. There is no reason for her to have to suffer this last indignity. She has nothing to do with it. It is infuriating. She is a global icon, a trailblazer for women. It is heartbreaking that she has to do this.

“Look, she is somebody who has so many titles, and has done so much on the national stage, on the international stage, being elected and Senate-confirmed,” said Bash, and her being forced to testify was “an example of her getting sucked back into Bill Clinton” and his actions, not her own actions.

Henderson replied that “we all remember” the infamous “stand by your man” interview that Clinton did when her husband was running for president in 1992, and then how Trump had a press conference with some of Bill Clinton’s accusers during their presidential campaign in 2016.

Bill Clinton’s issues have “followed” his wife, said Henderson, and “marred her” and “in so many ways, it has blocked her ascendancy,” so that despite her accomplishments “she has had to spend her entire life sort of explaining some of Bill Clinton’s failings, which have been many, particularly when it, when it, when it comes to his relationship with women — and here she is having to do that again.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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