Clintons to Testify in Epstein Probe After Contempt Threat (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, a former Secretary of State, have agreed to testify before the congressional investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and this comes days before a vote on whether to hold them in criminal contempt for refusing to do so. Mr Clinton was acquainted with Epstein but has denied knowledge of his sex offending and says he cut off contact two decades ago. Well let's go to our North America correspondent now Peter Bowes for the latest on this. So Peter tell us about this change of decision on the part of the Clintons.

[00:00:39] Speaker 2: And this does seem to be because later this week there was to be a vote in the House of Representatives that could have found them in criminal contempt and that could have kick-started a process involving the Department of Justice and a possible trial which if found guilty could result in a fine or indeed a prison sentence. Now clearly none of that will happen now because the Clintons have agreed to appear before this committee. They have been resisting this for a long time saying that they have told everything that they know. They've been giving they've given written statements to the committee over the last few weeks and well as far as Hillary Clinton is concerned she has never met Epstein. We know that Bill Clinton has moved in Epstein's circles. We know that in the latest cache of documents and videos there are photographs featuring Bill Clinton but clearly this committee wants to ask him and Hillary Clinton about possible connections with Epstein and perhaps the opportunity to follow up some of their answers which clearly they couldn't do in terms of the the written statement. So I think the committee wants to dig as deep as they can in terms of probing and questioning the Clintons about what they know.

[00:01:56] Speaker 1: Yeah and as you say they have provided sworn statements already and they had sort of dug their heels in about testifying at this particular committee because they always argued it was not non-partisan it was more about politics than finding out the truth.

[00:02:13] Speaker 2: Yes and this is a Republican controlled committee and I think politics does come into this that there was a fear there was perhaps a thought that the committee the Republican majority in the committee was trying to sway attention away from perhaps the Trump administration on to Democrats a Democratic former president and secretary of state but clearly they have decided the Clintons have decided that perhaps they've been backed into a corner just to some extent because of the legal potential legal repercussions so they have decided to appear at a date to be decided in the future. It's interesting that this is the committee that also wants to ask questions of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and possibly Peter Mandelson and the Clintons spokesperson said that Bill and Hillary Clinton now look forward to setting a precedent that applies to everyone a suggestion that perhaps the Clintons appearing should encourage others to agree to appear before this committee as well.