Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has defied a subpoena to appear before a congressional probe into notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein prompting Republicans to move toward holding her in contempt of Congress.
Mrs Clinton was scheduled to be deposed behind closed doors but lawyers for the Democrat and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, told the House Oversight Committee their subpoenas were "invalid and legally unenforceable".
They said Mrs Clinton had already shared the limited knowledge she had about Epstein and accused the committee of forcing an unnecessary legal showdown.
Republican chairman James Comer had said the committee would meet next Wednesday to advance a contempt of Congress resolution against Mr Clinton after he skipped his own deposition yesterday.
Mr Comer said Ms Clinton would get the same treatment.
"We're going to hold both Clintons in criminal contempt of Congress," he said.
The Clintons are among ten people subpoenaed as part of the panel's investigation into Epstein, who died in what was ruled a prison suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The Clintons' attorneys criticised Mr Comer's leadership of the investigation, calling his targeting of the couple "a protracted and unnecessary legal confrontation that distracts from the principal work of the Congress".
Any contempt resolution advanced by the House Oversight Committee would need to be approved in a majority vote of the entire House chamber before a criminal referral can be considered by the Department of Justice.
A criminal contempt of Congress is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a maximum $100,000 fine.
Mrs Clinton has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and her name does not appear in the thousands of Epstein-related documents released so far under the Justice Department's Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Mr Clinton, also not accused of wrongdoing, has said he severed ties with Epstein before the financier was charged with sex crimes in 2006.
