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Reporter’s Notebook: Clintons call for open Epstein files hearing after months of defying subpoenas
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Since there was such a tempest over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show, perhaps there’s a solution at hand. This compromise would satisfy both red and blue America. And the exhibition would transfix the country: Have former President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump testify at halftime about the Epstein files.
Republicans believe former President Clinton has something to hide about Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats think the same about President Trump. The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the former president and Hillary Clinton to testify about the Epstein files. After a lot of wrangling, the Clintons are due to appear for closed-door depositions later this month.
But both Bill and Hillary Clinton are now calling for open sessions. And Democrats believe that such an appearance at a public session — by a former President — would establish a precedent to lug in President Trump to answer questions about what he knew about Epstein.
GHISLAINE MAXWELL TO APPEAR BEFORE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE LAWMAKERS FOR EPSTEIN PROBE DEPOSITION
Hillary Clinton addresses her staff and supporters about the results of the U.S. election as her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, applauds at a hotel in the Manhattan borough of New York, Nov. 9, 2016. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)
One architect of the law compelling the release of the Epstein files, applauded demands last week by the former First Couple to testify at a televised open hearing. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the former president is an important witness.
«As long as [the hearing is] focused on Epstein, and it’s not a wild goose chase — it’s not trying to score political points or embarrass either President Clinton or President Trump, it is asking legitimate questions about what they knew took place and who they knew were participating in heinous acts,» said Khanna. «That should be a legitimate point of inquiry.»
After agreeing to a closed-door deposition later this month, Hillary Clinton took to X. She wrote to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., saying, «If you want this fight let’s have it in public.»
Former President Clinton echoed his wife the next day on X, also calling for a public session. The former commander-in-chief declared that he won’t be used «as a prop in a closed door Kangaroo Court.»
A spokeswoman for Comer accused the former first couple of «moving the goalposts.» Comer was always open to a hearing. But after a closed-door deposition.
«Depositions have historically been much more substantive than hearings,» said Comer. «Hearings unfortunately, have become more of an entertainment thing.»
It’s hard to track exactly what the Clintons wanted.
The House Oversight Committee voted on a bipartisan basis last August to subpoena both Bill and Hillary Clinton for depositions — along with a host of other prominent figures like former Attorney General Bill Barr. After a lot of haggling, the committee subpoenaed them to appear at dates in October. The Clintons defied those. Then the committee assigned them dates just before Christmas. But neither showed then because of a funeral. The committee requested that the Clintons give them dates for January appearances. They didn’t. The committee then assigned them additional dates for January testimony. They skipped out on those. That’s when Comer threatened to hold the Clintons in contempt of Congress if they didn’t appear in January. The Oversight Committee voted — in bipartisan fashion — for contempt. The House Rules Committee planned last week to prep a measure to force the entire House to vote on contempt — and send criminal referrals for the Clintons to the Justice Department for prosecution after they defied the subpoenas.
REVEALED: TRUMP CALLED POLICE CHIEF TO SUPPORT EPSTEIN PROBE, AND LAWMAKERS NAMED 6 MEN SHIELDED FROM EXPOSURE
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., alongside Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., left, speaks to reporters after a closed-door deposition with Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and confidante of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But the Clintons finally agreed to depositions at the end of this month. And once that was on the calendar, the duo began calling for public hearings.
There is a method behind this madness. There isn’t a loyalty among younger Congressional Democrats to the Clintons. In fact, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was steamed at some Democrats for wanting the Clintons to appear. Younger Democrats don’t have the same reverence for the Clintons as older Democrats. Hillary Clinton ran for president a decade ago. She hasn’t been a senator since 2009. She last served as Secretary of State in early 2013. President Clinton left the Oval Office more than a quarter-century ago.
However, this is the Democrats’ gambit:
If former President Clinton appears about the Epstein files, it may be tough to make the case that President Trump shouldn’t appear.
«Certainly it does set the precedent. President Trump was subpoenaed during the January 6th investigations and didn’t come in. He cited some form of executive privilege. And so we’re kind of forcing the Clintons to come in with the threat of criminal contempt. Then that is a precedent that we are setting,» said Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va. «In other countries, like the UK, the Prime Minister regularly comes before the Parliament. And so it’s not like it’s unprecedented around the world.»
Granted, that’s a parliamentary system where the prime minister is a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer regularly appears for «Prime Minister’s Questions» every Wednesday at noon in London. Members of Parliament usually pepper the prime minister with questions and scoff in a scene which resembles something out of Monty Python.
But the American and British systems are fundamentally different.
Getting a sitting or former President — and even first lady — before Congress is rare but not unheard of.
BONDI TO FACE GRILLING IN HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE OVER EPSTEIN FILES, WEAPONIZATION ALLEGATIONS
Former President Bill Clinton was seen in photos with Jeffrey Epstein as part of a DOJ Epstein files release on Friday, Dec. 19. (Department of Justice)
There are three prominent examples of sitting Presidents appearing before Congress. President Abraham Lincoln testified voluntarily before the House Judiciary Committee in 1862. The New York Herald published his «State of the Union» message to Congress just before it was sent to Capitol Hill. Presidents sent written «reports» in those days. They did not give speeches to Congress. Lawmakers probed the leak of the message to Congress. It was speculated that Herald reporter Henry Wikoff got the message ahead of time thanks to his friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln. The House Sergeant at Arms briefly held Wikoff — and released him after the president spoke to the Judiciary Committee.
President Woodrow Wilson appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1919 to discuss a treaty with Germany and establishing the League of Nations. Wilson’s push for the League of Nations failed. The Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles.
President Gerald Ford had been in office two-and-a-half months before he appeared voluntarily before the House Judiciary Committee in the fall of 1974. Ford told lawmakers that his pardon of former President Richard Nixon wasn’t something they bargained about. Ford told the committee that he pardoned Nixon because his physical and mental health fell into a steep decline.
Former President Harry Truman appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1955 to testify about the United Nations Charter.
Ford came back as a former president in 1983 for a Senate hearing on the bicentennial of the Constitution.
And there are examples of both sitting and former first ladies testifying, too.
Eleanor Roosevelt testified twice as first lady. Once about labor issues. Then, about the organization of volunteers for the civilian defense agency before World War II.
Rosalynn Carter testified about mental health as first lady.
Hillary Clinton famously testified about her husband’s health care plan — even though it was dubbed (often derisively) «Hillarycare» in the fall of 1993. She testified multiple times as Secretary of State. Most notably in early 2013 regarding Benghazi.
And, first lady Laura Bush was en route to Capitol Hill to testify before a Senate panel about early childhood education on 9/11. The committee cancelled the hearing after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon.
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So, many Republicans are game to hear from the Clintons about the Epstein files. Frankly, some were more interested in just holding them in contempt than actually gleaning anything about Epstein. But it looks like the Clintons will at least sit for depositions in a few weeks. Whether there’s a hearing or not is unclear. Some Republicans may even push for that. But caveat emptor. An open session for the Clintons will only intensify the push by Democrats — and some GOPers — to hear from President Trump.
Their testimony might not come during the Super Bowl halftime show. But open testimony by a former President and a sitting President would be a political Super Bowl.
politics,the clintons,jeffrey epstein,republicans,house of representatives politics,congress,william barr
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Iran’s ‘basement’ Chinese drone networks spark fears of sleeper cell attacks on US soil
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Iran is building a decentralized drone warfare capability in Tehran’s apartment building basements, powered by inexpensive technology sourced from China, a leading defense expert has warned.
Draganfly’s Cameron Chell also said that this emerging system — centered on first-person-view (FPV) drones — could pose a threat not only across the Middle East but potentially to the U.S. homeland itself.
«The FPVs are Iran’s Hail Mary because they are very hard to defend, are incredibly effective, and can be delivered in a manner without having to have a central command,» Chell told Fox News Digital.
«So whether it’s the Iranian army, whether it’s militia groups or Iranian patriots, they can all create or procure their own FPVs and get offensive,» Chell said.
EX-CIA STATION CHIEF WARNS US TROOP DEPLOYMENT TO KEY IRANIAN ISLAND COULD BE ‘EXTREMELY RISKY’
Smoke rises after an Iranian drone was intercepted over the Bahrain Financial Harbour towers, which houses the Israeli embassy, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Manama, Bahrain, March 6, 2026. Picture taken on a mobile phone. (Stringer/Reuters)
He added that «Iran could be reiterating FPVs and churning out more than 100,000 a month over time.»
«Iran’s got either militias or sleeper cells in the States who can, in my estimation, already build this equipment,» Chell clarified.
Chell’s warning comes as recent incidents in Iraq highlight the growing use of FPVs.
At Baghdad International Airport, Iranian-backed militias operating under the «Iraqi Islamic Resistance» umbrella have launched multiple FPV drone attacks.
Footage released in March 2026 allegedly shows an FPV drone striking a U.S. UH-60M or HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, while another attack successfully hit a U.S. AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar unit at the same base.
«FPVs are a central core theme, and Iran is building these itself, suspecting they’re pulling parts in from China and getting the parts through some pretty porous borders, so it is very difficult to stop that,» Chell said.
IRAN’S DRONE SWARMS CHALLENGE US AIR DEFENSES AS TROOPS IN MIDDLE EAST FACE RISING THREATS
A drone view of the site of an Iranian missile strike on a residential building, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the U.S. and Israel, in Tel Aviv (REUTERS/Roei Kastro)
He warned that Iran’s strategy mirrors what has already occurred in Ukraine, where decentralized drone manufacturing has flourished.
«There will be, or already is, an underground industry for FPV and drone manufacturing, which will or is swelling up inside Iran, the exact same way that we saw it swell up inside Ukraine,» he explained.
«This is going to be happening in people’s homes in Iran, people’s basements, the basements of apartment blocks, where they can construct makeshift assembly lines.»
«I am confident China and Russia are shipping in parts to help support the development of drone assembly or manufacturing capability – which is a de facto decentralized cottage industry,» he warned.
Concerns extend beyond overseas battlefields as about 1,500 Iranians were intercepted at the U.S. border during the Biden administration.
Officials warn the unknown number who evaded detection raises fears of potential «sleeper cells.»
MORE THAN 90% OF IRANIAN MISSILES INTERCEPTED, BUT A DANGEROUS IMBALANCE IS EMERGING
Iran drone swarms threaten U.S. military assets in Middle East region (Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS)
President Trump acknowledged the issue on March 11, saying, «A lot of people came in through Biden with his stupid open border, but we know where most of them are: We’ve got our eye on all of them, I think.»
«It is the beginning of an asymmetric capability that the Iranians will use against their neighbors and U.S. assets in the region, but also the U.S. homeland,» Chell said.
«We may even want to call it terrorist attacks, using FPV’s against their neighbors and practically anywhere in the world,» he added.
«It’s a matter of when we see FPV attacks, probably swarm, probably sophisticated, on U.S. soil.»
«Within the next eight months, the Iranians are going to have sophisticated drone systems that can defeat some RF/radio frequency jamming. They will start to use tactics like swarming or spoofing,» he warned.
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«It will be very, very difficult for the U.S. to take out these little drone factories in the basements of apartment blocks where civilians help. Cutting supply chains will also be difficult.»
«The primary choke point for the Iranians is to establish supply chains from China to have enough supply to constitute precision mass capability and/or consistent, pervasive asymmetric capability,» Chell said before stating that if this happens, «the war between Iran and the U.S. just gets a lot longer.»
war with iran, iran, wars, military tech, military
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson drew fire from an unlikely colleague on Tuesday over her lone dissent in the Supreme Court’s 8-1 decision finding Colorado’s ban on so-called «conversion therapy» for minors violated free speech rights.
Fellow liberal Justice Elena Kagan criticized Jackson for failing to acknowledge case law that governs when speech can be regulated in the medical field, marking a rare public break between two justices typically aligned in cases centered on high-profile cultural issues.
«Justice Jackson’s dissenting opinion claims that this is a small, or even nonexistent, category,» Kagan wrote in a footnote of a concurring opinion, which Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined. «But even her own opinion, when listing laws supposedly put at risk today, offers quite a few examples.»
Kagan, an Obama appointee, said Jackson’s view «rests on reimagining—and in that way collapsing—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.»
SUPREME COURT SKEPTICAL OF «CONVERSION THERAPY» LAW BANNING TREATMENT OF MINORS WITH GENDER IDENTITY ISSUES
Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The 8-1 decision on Tuesday arose from a lawsuit brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed Christian therapist, who argued her conversations with youth clients were a form of protected speech. The Colorado government had said the conversations amounted to professional conduct that the state was allowed to regulate.
Jackson’s fiery 35-page dissent, which she read from the bench when the high court announced the opinion, was longer than the majority opinion and Kagan’s concurrence combined.
«Professional medical speech does not intersect with the marketplace of ideas: ‘In the context of medical practice we insist upon competence, not debate,’» Jackson, a Biden appointee wrote, later adding, «Treatment standards exist in America.»
Jackson issued an ominous warning about national implications of the case, as about two dozen other states have laws similar to Colorado’s and will now need to take into account the high court’s ruling.
SUPREME COURT BLOCKS COLORADO’S SO-CALLED ‘CONVERSION THERAPY’ BAN ON FIRST AMENDMENT GROUNDS
The Supreme Court is seen on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
«Ultimately, because the majority plays with fire in this case, I fear that the people of this country will get burned,» Jackson said. «Before now, licensed medical professionals had to adhere to standards when treating patients: They could neither do nor say whatever they want.»
One conservative lawyer on social media observed that Kagan seemed «exasperated» by Jackson, who has become known as a verbose justice inclined to tack on lengthy solo dissents to the majority’s opinions in prominent cases. Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro agreed.
«That should be a separate descriptor of an opinion: concurring, dissenting, expressing exasperation with Justice Jackson,» Shapiro wrote on X.
Justice Elena Kagan (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Kagan joined the eight justices in finding that the Colorado government erred in regulating Chiles’ practice because the state used a 2019 law that only banned therapists from counseling minors if the therapy entailed advising them on how to resist becoming transgender or gay. That amounted to restricting one viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment, the majority said.
Kagan said that if the law were «content-based» rather than «viewpoint-based,» it would present less of a free speech problem.
«Because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward,» Kagan said. «It would, however, be less so if the law under review was content-based but viewpoint neutral.»
Jackson argued that Chiles was «not speaking in the ether; she is providing therapy to minors as a licensed healthcare professional.»
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The Supreme Court’s ruling was narrow, as Justice Neil Gorsuch explained in the majority opinion, as it directed the lower court to reexamine the Colorado law and ensure it did not interfere with Chiles’ speech rights.
«The First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country,» Gorsuch wrote. «It reflects instead a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth. However well-intentioned, any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.»
supreme court, colorado, federal judges, first amendment
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