Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday said the Jeffrey Epstein files released by the Justice Department contain “very troubling and really horrific information."
“It’s horrifying, and we’re hoping that, you know, there will be continued release every day that passes," Clinton said when asked by a reporter at the Munich Security Conference how the alleged conduct of Western leaders mentioned in the files reflects on Western values.
Clinton also mentioned that the presence of a person’s name in the files does not necessarily indicate criminal wrongdoing. She added that the information “needs to be totally transparent” so people can “not only see what is in them, but also, if appropriate, hold people accountable,” as cited by CNN.
Former President Bill Clinton is among several high-profile figures whose names appear in the Epstein files, according to the released documents.
Hillary Clinton, a former US senator and secretary of state and the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, has said she never met or had any interaction with Epstein.
Bill and Hillary Clinton are scheduled to sit for depositions in the US House investigation into the case later this month, following months of negotiations. Bill Clinton is set to testify on 27 February, while Hillary Clinton will appear a day earlier.
This will be the first time a former president has appeared before Congress since Gerald Ford in 1983.
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee has sought filmed and transcribed depositions from Bill and Hillary Clinton, with no time limits. Lawmakers had been preparing to vote on holding the Clintons in criminal contempt of Congress, but the plan was put on hold on Monday after their legal team agreed to the committee’s conditions, as cited by the BBC.
The Clintons had previously said they had already submitted sworn statements detailing the “limited information” they had about Epstein, and described the subpoenas as “nothing more than a ploy to attempt to embarrass political rivals, as President Trump has directed.”
The committee last month approved a measure to hold the couple in contempt, with backing from several Democratic members.
