Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pictured in February 2026.
Photo: ADAM BERRY / AFP

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is facing off with the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door interview as part of the panel's investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Thursday's (local time) deposition in Chappaqua, New York, is the culmination of a vigourous fight by both the former secretary of state and former Democratic President Bill Clinton over testifying in what they denounced as a Republican plot against them.

Clinton has said she cannot recall ever meeting Epstein and only interacted with his former associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, a handful of times. Republicans, however, insist her testimony is vital to their probe, while Democrats have argued their colleagues' fixation on the former secretary of state is purely political.

"I want everybody treated the same way. That's not true for my husband and me because other witnesses were asked to testify. They gave written statements under oath. We offered that," she told the BBC in an interview earlier this month. "Why do they want to pull us into this? To divert attention from President (Donald) Trump. This is not complicated."

Clinton is being interviewed the day before her husband's appearance, which will be the first time a former president has been forced to testify in a congressional probe. The pair of interviews will be videotaped and transcribed, and lawmakers from both parties will have the opportunity to ask questions.

The Clintons only agreed to comply with their subpoenas for closed-door depositions after the House had moved toward a bipartisan vote to hold them in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to appear as scheduled.

The former secretary of state was accompanied by her attorneys, who have been working through painstaking details of what areas could be covered during questioning.

The location for the depositions, the Clintons' hometown of Chappaqua, was negotiated between Kendall and Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in hopes of avoiding the indignity and precedent-setting move of summoning a former president to Capitol Hill for questioning.

Meanwhile, AFP reports the hearing was paused after a photo of the former Secretary of State taken during the deposition was posted online, an apparent breach of the rules.