Congress

Serious investigation or ‘clown show’? Clintons’ closed testimonies on Epstein leave room for disagreement

Published

7 months ago

February 28, 2026

CHAPPAQUA, New York — As House Republicans and Democrats embarked on two days of depositions with Bill and Hillary Clinton, both sides professed a seriousness of purpose to find answers that could aid their investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

They left with completely different versions of what transpired behind closed doors.

Republicans said President Donald Trump was now “exonerated.” Democrats said Trump was no such thing and called the event an “unserious clown show.” And amid dueling news conferences and social media posts throughout Thursday and Friday, the public is now left with starkly divergent narratives in a congressional probe that shows few signs of ending anytime soon.

The split screen underscores the politically fraught nature of the House investigation, which is unfolding as the electorate clamors for someone to be held accountable for the years that the sex trafficking operation of Epstein and his co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, went unchecked.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee spent hours grilling both Clintons — the former secretary of State on Thursday and the former president on Friday — about Epstein and Maxwell, in compliance with a pair of subpoenas issued by the panel as part of its long-running Epstein investigation.

Republican and Democratic committee members took turns chiding each other for their characterizations of the Clintons’ testimonies, while also selectively leaking comments from inside the room to support their respective party lines.

Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said that Bill Clinton told the committee that Trump “never said anything to me to make me think he was involved” with Epstein and left Republicans confident there was no reason now to depose the president.

“From all the evidence I’ve seen, he’s been exonerated for a long time,” Comer said of Trump during a news conference Friday.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said repeatedly the former president’s deposition Friday sets a precedent for Trump to testify under oath, and that Comer’s remarks were not an “accurate description” of Bill Clinton’s testimony.

Democrats said Bill Clinton’s deposition raised additional questions about Trump and Epstein’s falling out. Trump has long said he kicked Epstein out of his club, Mar-a-Lago in Florida, years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest on sex trafficking charges, because he “stole people that worked for me,” while the White House has said Epstein was banned “for being a creep.”

Neither of the Clintons have been accused of misconduct in connection with Epstein. Bill Clinton has maintained he was an acquaintance of Epstein’s and traveled on his plane several times internationally, while Secret Service details were present, but stopped communicating with him at least a decade before his arrest in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

Trump also has not been charged with any wrongdoing. Behind closed doors, however, Bill Clinton testified that Trump told him he and Epstein had “great times together,” according to a person in the room who was granted anonymity to describe the private deposition.

Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost said Bill Clinton testified that Trump told him the falling out with Epstein was over a land dispute.

“He’s been caught in multiple lies as it relates to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Frost said.

Bill Clinton’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. The White House referred back to an earlier statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said, “the President has always remained consistent in that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago because frankly, Jeffrey Epstein was a creep.”

The Republican-led committee is expected to release videos of the proceedings as soon as this weekend. Democrats on the committee requested full, unedited versions to be made public, with each side promising their version of events will then be vindicated.

Republicans are under increasing public pressure to have something to show for their investigation and are eager to find a win in the Clintons’ testimony.

Comer said Friday his panel would call in additional witnesses as part of the ongoing probe, saying lawmakers had refrained from naming any of these individuals before the Clintons’ depositions. He suggested names could be announced before the depositions of the co-executors of Epstein’s estate, which will take place in the coming weeks.

“I didn’t want to do anything that jeopardized losing them,” he told reporters Friday, referring to the Clintons.

As lawmakers left the deposition site in Chappaqua, it also appeared likely the panel would soon subpoena Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has faced calls to resign over revelations in the Justice Department’s materials about the extent of his relationship with Epstein. Rep Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a Republican on the Oversight panel, said she was on board.

Lutnick recently acknowledged that he visited Epstein’s island in 2012 with his family, after he previously claimed their relationship ended before Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting a -r0st9t8te. Lutnick has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes.

“We have a lot of questions about anyone who spent time with Epstein post-conviction,” Comer told reporters when asked about calling in Lutnick to testify.

Congress

Capitol agenda: China fears drive AI divide

Published

32 minutes ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans — and Congress — are divided on whether it’s acceptable to fall behind other countries in the race to develop advanced artificial intelligence.

And that fear of international competition is emerging as a key point of tension slowing down any path to AI safety legislation.

Even as almost two thirds of respondents in a new Blue Light News poll said there’s a real possibility that AI could destroy humanity, they’re split on whether it’s acceptable to slow down and potentially fall behind other countries like China in an AI arms race.

A plurality, 43 percent, say it is okay for the U.S. to fall behind if that means developing AI more responsibly and securely, while 37 percent take the opposite view. Voters who backed Donald Trump in 2024 favor the competition-first position by 50 percent compared to just 34 percent of Kamala Harris voters.

Republican Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie argued the U.S. cannot risk Chinese AI dominance, and that AI legislation is too complex to rush — even if that means pushing off until next year consideration of a measure by his panel.

“We absolutely can’t surrender,” he said Wednesday at Blue Light News’s Decoded Summit.

Meanwhile, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said competition isn’t a reason to avoid guardrails.

“The AI race is not an arms race that you win,” Rep. Greg Casar said at the Decoded Summit.

Other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are trying to strike a balance. Rep. John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, acknowledged lawmakers “do have a responsibility for public safety” while saying it was also important to “beat China when it comes to the AI race.”

Still, the emerging divisions spotlight a long road ahead for any consensus from Congress.

An attempt to quickly pass a bill requiring companies to build a “kill switch” into their AI models from Republican Sen. John Kennedy was blocked Wednesday by Sen. Rand Paul on the chamber’s floor.

And while Guthrie’s Senate counterpart, Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Wednesday his hope was still to mark up this month a bipartisan AI safety bill from Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, lawmakers haven’t reached agreement to finalize the measure. Thune himself said Wednesday he was unsure it would happen before the midterms.

Cracks are also starting to show among the leading AI companies on what role they want Congress to play.

One example: Anthropic’s policy chief Sarah Heck declined at Blue Light News’s summit to endorse a proposal for congressionally mandated independent AI monitoring — a day after competitor OpenAI endorsed it. The proposal is a key provision in Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan’s bipartisan AI safety measure.

The House’s early dismissal Wednesday only added to time pressure on lawmakers, who will return to a lame duck session with an already full calendar.

What else we’re watching:

— LEE BULLISH ON PERMITTING: Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee told fellow Republicans during a closed-door lunch Wednesday he is “guardedly optimistic” that negotiators will reach a long-sought deal on a bill to ease permitting approval for energy projects. “We were told today that the Democrats are going to agree to a permitting bill, and it’s going to be drafted and ready for us to vote on,” Kennedy said in an interview. Still, the top negotiators have yet to clinch an agreement, meaning the timeline could slip until after the midterms.

— SPY LAW TIMING UNCLEAR: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently warnedCongress that if it doesn’t vote on a controversial surveillance law by Nov. 20, the program could go dark, but it’s unclear congressional leadership can meet that deadline. Thune told reporters this week that there is an “interest” in trying to get Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reauthorized, but didn’t commit to getting a vote before the midterms. With the House gone, reauthorization will wait until at least mid-November, regardless.

Riley Rogerson, Mia McCarthy, Anna Wiederkehr, Jordain Carney, John Sakellariadis and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.

Congress

Poll: China fears drive polarization on AI regulations

Published

4 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Americans are divided on whether it’s acceptable to fall behind other countries in the race to develop advanced artificial intelligence. So is Congress.

A new POLITICO Poll finds that Americans broadly recognize serious risks from frontier AI models, but many — particularly President Donald Trump’s voters — also prioritize maintaining a lead over other countries, including China.

Even as 63% of the poll’s respondents said there’s a real possibility that AI could destroy humanity, they’re split on whether it’s acceptable to slow down and potentially fall behind in order to mitigate that risk.

A plurality, 43%, say it is acceptable for the U.S. to fall behind other countries if that means developing AI more responsibly and securely, while 37% take the opposite view, saying the U.S. should not stand down, even if that requires taking risks. Voters who backed Trump in 2024 favor the competition-first position by 50% to 38%.

That split is already playing out on Capitol Hill as AI safety zooms to the center of congressional conversations. With legislation only slowly taking shape, fear of international competition stands to be a major point of tension during any bipartisan negotiations — with most lawmakers’ views divided closely along party lines.

Many Republican lawmakers said in interviews this week that pausing AI development could give China an opening to overtake U.S. capabilities. Democrats are also looking over their shoulders at Chinese advances, but they are cautioning that competition is not a reason for Congress to avoid instituting AI guardrails.

“The AI race is not an arms race that you win,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said during Wednesday’s Blue Light News Decoded Summit. “It’s an arms race that we need to end, and we need to protect the American people.”

Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has teamed up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in calling for a ban on “superintelligence” to stave off the existential threats to humanity — a concern that bubbled to the fore last week when a former Anthropic researcher warned AI could “kill us all.”

Senior Republicans are denigrating proposals like Casar’s, arguing that the U.S. cannot risk Chinese AI dominance. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), chair of the powerful House committee overseeing the tech industry, said as much at the summit.

“We absolutely can’t surrender,” he said. “And I think that’s what it would be if we stopped AI development.”

Guthrie further argued AI legislation is too complex to rush and that the Energy and Commerce Committee he leads might not take up AI legislation before next year. That sentiment is in line with Speaker Mike Johnson, who said this week that the U.S. must “maintain our edge over China.” Meanwhile, Trump has called the AI panic a “HOAX” and said that federal regulations would allow China to leapfrog the U.S.

Some Republicans have been almost flippant about the dilemma policymakers face in reconciling a potentially dangerous technology with their fear of Chinese competition.

“If there are going to be killer robots, I’d rather they be American killer robots,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent POLITICO interview. Like Guthrie, Cruz chairs a committee overseeing tech matters.

Among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who have locked arms in warning about the Chinese threat on other fronts, the familiar partisan divide is still emerging on AI regulation.

“We can lead in innovation and lead in safety,” said Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.), who sits on the bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. “So if Trump or anyone else comes at it that we can only do one but not the other, he’s not looking at the history of the United States of America.”

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a moderate Republican China hawk, said he is “very reluctant to hinder AI” via regulation.

“They’re going to have to make the good case why we need it,” he said. “We don’t want to hinder our AI research. We can’t afford to fall behind China.”

Some, however, are being careful to strike a balanced tone as the AI safety conversation kicks into high gear.

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House China panel, acknowledged lawmakers “do have a responsibility for public safety” while saying it was also important to “beat China when it comes to the AI race.”

“There’s economic benefits to that,” he said. “There’s national security issues, but we want to have common sense and a deliberative process.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), an Intelligence Committee member and a co-chair of House Democrats’ AI commission, said China is “not waiting for anyone else.”

“So you can’t just leave the race, but you need to make sure you do it in the right way,” he added.

Opinions are sharper when it comes to Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week and whether he should even broach some type of cooperation on AI safety.

“I don’t trust him,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said when asked if Trump should engage with Xi on AI. “I trust Trump.”

But many Democrats say it’s a mistake to engage in an AI arms race, with some explicitly reaching for analogies with the nuclear arms race that ended in Cold War treaties with a former global rival — the Soviet Union — limiting bomb tests and missile deployments.

Rep. Ted Lieu of California, another co-chair of the Democratic AI commission, said Trump could start small by asking Xi to “commit that they’re never going to let AI launch a nuclear weapon by itself.”

“There are things that we can do to get other countries to follow the lead the U.S. has taken in AI,” he said.

Congress

Democrats keep pressure on Hakeem Jeffries to punish rogue members

Published

12 hours ago

September 17, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Democrats aren’t letting rogue members off the hook for bucking their party. They hope Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won’t either.

“Obviously, there’s got to be” punishment for the two Democrats who twice this month bucked their party to advance a slate of Republican priorities, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said in an interview.

“Otherwise, then,” he said, “it’s open season.”

Democrats are watching closely how — and if — Jeffries doles out consequences for Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington who have twice provided the decisive votes for GOP procedural measures this month. Jeffries and his leadership team condemned the two members when they first defected two weeks ago, slamming a “breach of trust” warranting a “serious response” but have yet to inflict any public consequences.

On Tuesday, they defied leadership a second time, infuriating House Democrats and resurrecting questions about how leadership plans to keep its caucus in line — especially if they have a slim majority next term.

“We have to all be united, and I think it’s pretty simple,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If there’s not [a punishment], I find it hard to see a path forward in the majority, which we’re all pushing for.”

Asked if leadership should punish the two aisle-crossers, Rep. Troy Carter pointed to his time as minority leader of the Louisiana state Senate: “When I had members that did not work within the confines of the philosophical views of our party, I took them off our caucus.”

“I don’t want to second-guess anybody’s timing, but I will tell you that these things cannot allow to fester,” he added. “We have to have a strict message: Either you’re with the team on those fundamental issues of governance or you aren’t.”

Multiple members, including Carter, said that removing Gluesenkamp Perez from the Appropriations Committee should be considered. (While members are just as angry at Golden, they acknowledge he’s beyond punishment given he is retiring at the end of this term.)

“I suspect that there are a number of appropriate consequences that [leaders] could implement,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said in an interview. “And, ultimately, it’s their decision. I certainly don’t want that to be a caucus decision. That should be a leadership decision.”

One leader, Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, suggested she is open to removing Gluesenkamp Perez from Appropriations, telling reporters Wednesday morning that “team players get to sit on exclusive committees.”

After the first instance where the two Democrats defected on Sept. 1, Jeffries kicked the matter to a caucus rules panel, saying afterward he wanted to pursue action against the two members “sooner rather than later.” The panel continues to deliberate on what should happen if members vote with Republicans on procedural measures.

Jeffries said that week that he’d had a “productive” and “forward-looking” conversation with Gluesenkamp Perez, but he has said much less after Tuesday’s floor drama.

“I’ll have more to say about the issue when I have more to say about the issue,” he told Blue Light News shortly after the vote.