Congress

‘You’ll have to ask my husband:’ House Republicans say Hillary Clinton punted questions on Epstein

Published

4 months ago

February 27, 2026

CHAPPAQUA, New York — Hillary Clinton appeared to offer little new or relevant information during her closed-door testimony Thursday for a House investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, according to Republicans who questioned her for hours — raising the stakes for them to pry revelations out of Bill Clinton when he sits for his deposition Friday.

The former secretary of state testified for roughly six hours under oath, fielding questions from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about any involvement Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, and longtime co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, might have had with the Clinton Global Initiative.

Hillary Clinton reiterated that she did not recall ever meeting Epstein and that she only knew Maxwell “casually as an acquaintance.” She denied knowing anything in real time about Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking offenses. In fact, she repeatedly punted questions to her husband, the former president.

“I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein. I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I never went to his offices,” she told reporters after the deposition. “So it’s on the record numerous times.”

She also complained that Republicans’ questions were “repetitive,” noting how lawmakers frequently veered off topic — asking about UFOs and the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory that circulated among some conservatives during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, when she was the Democratic nominee.

“They asked literally the same questions over and over again, which didn’t seem to me to be very productive,” she said.

Democratic lawmakers said that proves Republicans are engaged in a political fishing expedition — Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) earlier in the day called the proceedings a “clown show” — but Republican members of the committee are using the nonresponses to tee up Bill Clinton’s forthcoming deposition Friday morning.

“The number of times that she said, ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask my husband,’ was more than a dozen,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told reporters after Hillary Clinton’s deposition concluded Thursday.

Republican Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) also told reporters that any specific questions about the Clinton Global Initiative and the relationship the Clintons might have had with Epstein and Maxwell, who is currently in prison, could only be answered by Bill Clinton.

Neither of the Clintons have been accused of misconduct. Bill Clinton has maintained he was an acquaintance of Epstein’s but stopped communicating with him at least a decade before his arrest in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

His spokesperson Angel Ureña also posted on social media in 2019 that Bill Clinton traveled on Epstein’s plane four times internationally in 2002 and 2003, though Secret Service details were present “on every leg of the trip.”

But Republicans are eager to make Bill Clinton their bogeyman, seizing on images of him posing with Epstein and unidentified women that are part of the files released by the Justice Department, either in response to the law passed by Congress or the subpoena issued in August by the Oversight Committee.

GOP members of the Oversight panel are also facing increasing pressure to escalate their Epstein investigation, which so far has spurred no prosecutions in the U.S. — in stark contrast to all the heads rolling across the Atlantic. The global fallout includes the recent arrests in Britain of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, and ex-ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson, not on allegations of sex crimes but rather on suspicions of misconduct in public office.

The committee’s focus on the Clintons, however, is fueling accusations from Democrats that the GOP is deflecting from President Donald Trump’s own ties to the convicted sex offender — especially after news reports this week found the DOJ may have withheld FBI case records of allegations that Trump allegedly sexually abused a minor.

Trump has maintained he had a falling out with Epstein years before his 2019 arrest and had no part in Epstein’s criminal activities.

Speaking to reporters multiple times during breaks in Hillary Clinton’s deposition, Comer stated that the president has already answered “hundred if not thousands of questions” about his relationship with Epstein.

The Justice Department told NPR any files that were not published are privileged, duplicates or related to an ongoing investigation.

Democrats remain unimpressed.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, appeared to suggest Thursday that Democrats would attempt to subpoena Trump next year for information, should their party reclaim the House majority in the midterms.

“This committee has now set a new precedent about talking to presidents and former presidents,” Garcia told reporters. “And we’re demanding immediately that we ask President Trump to testify in front of our committee and be deposed in front of oversight Republicans and Democrats.”

Congress

A frustrated Trump unloads on Senate Republicans behind closed doors

Published

43 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans hoped to use a closed-door lunch to clear the air with President Donald Trump. Instead, the president vented his frustrations with the senators for more than an hour, leaving them no closer to detente.

The meeting came at an explosive moment, with GOP lawmakers increasingly frustrated by Trump’s mercurial treatment of congressional Republican priorities. Just hours before arriving on Capitol Hill, Trump delivered his latest rug-pull — announcing he would refuse to sign a major housing bill that leaders were already touting after big bipartisan majorities passed it this week.

But senators said Trump arrived determined to prosecute his internal grudges against the Republican lawmakers who have opposed him at times — particularly those who have expressed misgivings about the Iran war and who are refusing to comply with the president’s demands for swift passage of a controversial elections bill.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) described Trump as “mad as a murder hornet” about the Iran vote, while Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) described the scene as “very much like a hospital board meeting, when a bunch of doctors are yelling at each other.”

Marshall added that “at the end of the day, we’ll figure out a way to get along.”

Another GOP senator, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the lunch “very intense.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), deploying some go-to congressional lingo for heated encounters, called it “spirited,” “frank” and “candid.”

Trump and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) sparred at length over the Iran war, according to two people granted anonymity to describe the private interaction. Trump also railed over Tuesday’s successful war powers vote, lambasting Cassidy and three other GOP senators who voted for the resolution.

Cassidy acknowledged the two had a heated exchange to reporters after the lunch. After Trump questioned why Republicans would vote against him on the war, Cassidy said he told the president that the conflict was not going as well as senators were being told.

“The president said something negative about me. I received it as attempting to bully me from asking a question that I think the American people need to know, and I’m not going to be bullied,” said Cassidy, who recently lost his campaign for renomination after Trump endorsed against him.

Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) also confirmed the exchange between Trump and Cassidy. He said the two “harbor bad feelings” and urged them both to move on.

The meeting also failed to reveal a way forward on Trump’s No. 1 priority, the elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.

Trump cited the need to pass the legislation in his stunning decision Wednesday morning to cancel a signing ceremony for the long-stalled housing bill. A rostrum had been erected in Statuary Hall for the occasion, and House GOP leaders were promoting its benefits at a news conference when the presidential U-turn occurred.

Senators said Trump largely reiterated his publicly stated positions on the housing bill, the GOP election bill and his demand that they eliminate the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

“He believes that the SAVE America act ought to be in front of the housing bill,” Justice said.

Sen. Rand Paul said there had been “a thorough airing” of the elections bill during the meeting, but added it’s unclear “if there is a solution.”

The announcement only served to further exasperate the Senate GOP ahead of the lunch, which had been arranged by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), a MAGA loyalist who acted without the foreknowledge of Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Underscoring the mood going into the meeting, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said, “I would advise them to only use plastic utensils today.”

Republicans had hoped the housing bill would give them a long-sought legislative victory that would get the party on the same page and give them a foothold to argue that they are responding to Americans’ affordability concerns heading into the midterms.

Instead, Trump’s surprise declaration, which appeared to catch even some of his own staff off guard, became the latest curveball for Senate Republicans — following a surprise request for White House ballroom security funding and the announcement of a Justice Department “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that overshadowed and delayed passage of a GOP immigration enforcement bill.

Since then, Trump also has thrown a key surveillance program into limbo and upended the confirmation plans for his own nominee for director of national intelligence.

Most persistently, he has fixated on Senate Republicans passing the SAVE America Act — including by eliminating the filibuster — even though Thune and other GOP senators have said repeatedly that there aren’t the votes to do that.

“There is a huge group of people who really appreciate what the president is doing right now and it’s the Democrat party,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. ”And we’ve got to get our act together and stop surprising people and stop having conflicting messages.”

Congress

House Republicans no closer to a deal on ‘Reconciliation 3.0’

Published

59 minutes ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House GOP leaders are trying to make good on their promise to advance a long-shot, party-line package of conservative priorities by arguing it’s the only chance to pass pieces of President Donald Trump’s doomed elections bill. So far, their pitch is falling short.

Trump announced Wednesday he would not sign a major housing affordability measure until Congress passes the so-called SAVE America Act, which Speaker Mike Johnson and members of his senior leadership tried to leverage during their meeting later that same morning with Republicans on the House Budget Committee.

According to four people with direct knowledge of the closed-door discussions, however, fiscal hawks on the panel warned they would oppose any budget resolution — necessary to unlock the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process — unless it’s paid for on a yearly basis, and without budgeting gimmicks.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a key Budget Committee Republican, told reporters as he left the meeting that he would vote against any budget blueprint that is not fully paid for in current savings “dollar for dollar” and “year for year.”

And Rep. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.), another Budget Committee member, said that while the committees instructed to contribute policies to the reconciliation bill could include Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, it’s “too early” to talk about what will be in the budget resolution or any timeline for consideration.

It essentially guarantees that House Republicans will fail to meet an ambitious deadline of adopting a budget resolution before the July 4 holiday, let alone passing a reconciliation bill ahead of the monthlong August recess.

A failure to proceed would be a blow to Republicans who have argued there are few other opportunities to notch conservative wins in advance of the midterms — not to mention deliver on Trump demands, from the SAVE America Act to funding his ongoing military operation in the Middle East.

Johnson has remained bullish that Republicans will be able to move ahead on “Reconciliation 3.0” — follow-ups to last summer’s tax and spending megabill and the immigration enforcement bill Congress cleared earlier this month.

He is specifically floating the possibility that Republicans could, in that next reconciliation bill, create a grant program providing money to states to encourage the adoption of REAL ID requirements in order to vote.

Johnson said he made this case directly to Trump, too, before the president ultimately canceled his scheduled ceremonial signing of the landmark housing package in protest over the lack of Hill momentum on the elections bill.

“House Republicans will pull together a reconciliation bill … that will have that,” Johnson told reporters of the grant program Wednesday. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

But members who attended the meeting Wednesday argued the REAL ID grant program was no substitute for enacting the full SAVE America Act, which has passed the House but does not have the support to move forward in the Senate.

Roy, for instance, said the grant program is “not the SAVE America Act.”

Still, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) mirrored Johnson’s optimism Wednesday, saying he believed House Republicans could come to an agreement on viable offsets by the end of this week and perhaps on what policies to include by the end of next.

There are enough fraud-tackling initiatives that could cover the cost of any “Reconciliation 3.0” legislation in full, Arrington insisted, while also doubting the entire package would be paid for given intraparty disagreements about how deep to cut into social safety net programs.

“We know the money’s there. The question is, do we have the political will as a conference to do those things,” Arrington said. “We need everybody on the same page.”

There are other major policy disagreements, too, that show few signs of being quickly resolved.

After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed members of the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday afternoon of the Pentagon’s $350 billion funding request as part of another reconciliation bill, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) suggested he would support such a cash infusion — but wanted the administration to agree to replace the brigade in Eastern Europe.

Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), meanwhile, has said he wants the funding to be audited before agreeing to vote for it.

Some Republicans are pushing for defunding Planned Parenthood to be a part of any future reconciliation package, too — a politically charged demand for vulnerable incumbents to swallow.

“When we have something, I’ll start calculating the odds, but so far they haven’t put anything together,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in an interview this week. “It’s all a pretty vague concept.”

Congress

White House tells Republicans to expect war funding request by end of week

Published

3 hours ago

June 24, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump administration officials have told key Hill Republicans they should expect a request for an Iran war supplemental funding package by the end of this week.

The request is expected to be about $80 billion, according to five people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.

But House GOP appropriators believe the Senate will likely add additional non-military items, such as disaster relief or farm aid. House GOP leaders are worried the push for a supplemental bill will undercut their effort to pass another party-line reconciliation bill with GOP priorities and extra defense funding.

Congress has long awaited President Donald Trump’s request to cover the cost of the military campaign in the Middle East. But the measure, which would need at least some bipartisan support to pass the Senate, will face an uphill fight to become law.

Many Democrats who oppose the war are almost certain to object to funding a conflict they disagree with and regard as illegal because Trump didn’t seek congressional approval.

The roughly $80 billion price tag, though, is significantly less than the approximately $200 billion the Trump administration was reportedly weighing in recent months.

The supplemental request would likely be dedicated to replenishing stocks of missiles fired off in the early stages of the war and cover other costs of military operations in the Middle East in recent months.