Bill and Hillary Clinton risk prison after vote by Epstein committee
A US congressional committee has voted on charging Bill and Hillary Clinton with contempt, the first step of a process that could see both facing prison time.
Both the Clintons declined to testify in a House Oversight Committee investigation into notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
As a consequence, the committee voted to recommend charges for the former president and former secretary of state.
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Bill Clinton in a hot tub in a photo from the Epstein files. US Department of Justice
If the House of Representatives as a whole approves the citations, a referral will go to the Justice Department.
If found guilty, the pair could face up to a $US100,000 ($147,000) fine and a year in prison.
Today's vote passed on bipartisan grounds, with nine Democrats voting with all the Republicans on the committee on Mr Clinton's charge.
Three Democrats voted in favour of charging Mrs Clinton.
"No witness, not a former president or a private citizen, may willfully defy a Congressional subpoena without consequence," committee chair James Comer said.
"But that is what the Clintons did and that is why we are here."
The Clintons were friends with Epstein, though neither has been implicated in any of his crimes.
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This undated photo released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee shows former President Bill Clinton, Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein, with Clinton's signature at the top of the photo. House Oversight Committee
"And I think if you ask the victims, 'Do you want to hear from Bill Clinton?'" Comer said.
"I'm pretty confident I know what the answers will be."
Mr Clinton had agreed to be interviewed by the chairman and ranking member under specific conditions.
His conditions included the interview be conducted at his New York office and that questions be limited directly to "travel, use of plane, awareness of criminal activities, knowledge of the federal investigation or prosecutions, and efforts by Epstein to gain leverage".
The committee declined his conditions.
But Democrats would not stand behind the Clintons.
"We should hold anybody connected to Epstein in contempt who will not give us information," Representative Rashida Tlaib said.
"The survivors deserve transparency and justice."
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Bill and Hillary Clinton at Donald Trump's inauguration. AP
Epstein visited the White House 17 times during the Clinton presidency.
The former president flew on Epstein's plane about 27 times.
Another close friend of Epstein, President Donald Trump, has not been subpoenaed.
There is recent precedent of somebody being jailed for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
Trump White House advisors Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were both jailed for four months in 2024 after defying a subpoena.
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