For months, House Republicans have pretended to care about “transparency” in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, staging hearings, talking tough, and turning the investigation into political theater — all while zeroing in on Hillary and Bill Clinton as a headline-grabbing stunt and conspicuously sidestepping Donald Trump’s own well-documented proximity to the disgraced sex trafficker. That charade collapsed the moment Hillary Clinton demanded a public hearing, exposing just how hollow the GOP’s transparency talk really was.
The former secretary of state and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, agreed to sit for a deposition tied to the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein probe after her name appeared in the Justice Department’s latest document release. But when Clinton pushed to make that testimony public, Oversight Chair James Comer abruptly slammed the brakes, insisting the hearing stay behind closed doors.
Comer dismissed the idea of a public proceeding outright, arguing that “Open committee meetings are more for entertainment than substance.”
He then accused Clinton of bad faith. “She has moved the goalposts millions of times throughout the entire process, then fires out an email attacking me today, accusing me of moving the goalposts, and she’s the one trying to move the goalposts again,” Comer told Newsmax.
Clinton’s account paints a very different picture. After months of cooperating with Republicans, she says the committee ignored sworn information and turned the investigation into a distraction machine — until she challenged them to put it all on the record.
“For six months, we engaged Republicans on the Oversight Committee in good faith. We told them what we know, under oath,” Clinton wrote on X. “They ignored all of it. They moved the goalposts and turned accountability into an exercise in distraction.”
Then came the dare. “So let’s stop the games,” she continued. “If you want this fight, let’s have it—in public. You love to talk about transparency. There’s nothing more transparent than a public hearing, cameras on. We will be there.”
That challenge landed — and Republicans immediately backed away.
Comer responded by insisting the closed-door format had already been agreed to and would not change, though he claimed video, audio, and transcripts would eventually be released after the fact.
“The deposition is for substance. This is a serious investigation,” Comer said. “The purpose of the investigation is to get justice for the victims, and why the government failed the victims, and who the bad guys were and if they can be held accountable.”
He also accused the Clintons of miscasting themselves. “The Clintons are trying to play the victim card. The victims of Epstein are the victims, not the Clintons,” he said.
But the optics are unavoidable. For months, Republicans blocked the release of the Epstein files, only relenting after mounting public pressure forced a vote. The bill passed both chambers and left Trump no choice but to sign it into law. Having lost that fight, Republicans pivoted to amplifying Hillary Clinton’s name in connection to Epstein — then recoiled the moment she demanded the very transparency they claim to champion. A public hearing would have put everything on the table, under oath, and in full view of the public.
Instead, they chose secrecy.
Watch Comer’s interview below:
