Republicans are taking a victory lap after former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed—after being threatened with jail time—to testify in the House GOP's sham probe of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
"After delaying and defying duly issued subpoenas for six months, the House Oversight Committee moved swiftly to initiate contempt of Congress proceedings in response to their non-compliance,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement. “Once it became clear that the House of Representatives would hold them in contempt, the Clintons completely caved and will appear for transcribed, filmed depositions this month."
Comer and the rest of the hypocritical Republican dopes on the Oversight Committee—many of whom ignored subpoenas when the House was probing their involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection—think they scored big. In actuality, they have done little more than establish a precedent they will almost certainly come to regret.
Once Democrats are back in the House majority—which could happen as soon as January given how the midterm elections are shaping up for Republicans—they will be able to call President Donald Trump to testify in future probes of his large-scale corruption.
Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, shown in 2025.
"We are absolutely going to have Donald Trump testify under oath," Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu of California told NBC News of Democrats' plans once they are back in the majority.
Rep. Mark Pocan, Democrat of Wisconsin, was even more direct.
"This will make Donald Trump happy in the short term, but in the long term, a year from now, we have subpoena power," Pocan told NBC News. "What goes around comes around.”
And Trump seems to understand that. In a media availability on Tuesday, he said it was a "shame" that the Clintons were called to testify.
"I hate to see it in many ways," Trump said.
While trying to parse out what goes on in the hollow space between his ears remains futile, his comment suggests he may understand that if the Clintons can be forced to testify under threat of being jailed, he could someday face the same fate.
Indeed, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida gave a roadmap of the investigations House Democrats will launch into Trump's corrupt dealings.
“The folks here are going to run with it everywhere," Moskowitz told NBC News. "It will be crypto. It will be their business. It will be all the investments in the Middle East. It’ll be the Qatari plane? It’s going to be the latest thing with the UAE [United Arab Emirates]. It’s going to be all of it. All of it.”
“They are giving a license to these new chairmen in January and that will be Comer’s legacy,” he continued. “So when [Don] Junior and Eric and their children—not because I want this to happen, because I don’t, I don’t want it to happen—but when they’re all here, they can thank James Comer for that.”
This is yet another reason why it’s imperative that Democrats win at least control of the House in the 2026 midterms, and why it’s important to elect Democrats who will push for accountability, rather than adhere to a set of norms that have been broken.
The scale of the corruption is so large and so galling that the public can’t keep up.
If Democrats can keep it in voters’ minds by running investigations into Trump’s grift, then it will help them win the White House in 2028 and bring about real legal accountability.
