WASHINGTON — President Trump’s senior trade counselor Peter Navarro is slamming Bill Clinton’s decision to dodge a deposition about his relationship with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, as congressional Republicans seek to jail the former president and his wife Hillary Clinton.
The former president and ex-secretary of state were both compelled to appear before the House Oversight Committee last week — but declined to sit for depositions. Instead, the former first couple sent a letter providing written declarations denying all knowledge of Epstein’s sex crimes.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, led by chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), moved Wednesday to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in contempt over their refusal to testify.
Navarro was jailed for several months in 2024 after House Democrats held him in contempt for refusing testify to the Select January 6th Committee — despite him stating that he could not answer questions due to Trump invoking executive privilege.
“The difference with Clinton is no executive privilege was invoked and he’s facing a duly authorized committee,” Navarro said. “If he gets a subpoena he has to come: Full stop.”
Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon also declined to testify before the Democrat-led panel. Both he and Navarro served four months in federal prisons.
“Clinton can’t argue — as [Steve] Bannon did correctly — that the committee was illegally formed and therefore the subpoena was illegal,” Navarro explained.
In an interview with The Post on Tuesday, the trade adviser also said that — unlike the Oversight panel — the J6 Committee was not duly organized since it lacked a ranking member from the Republicans.
Navarro called his prosecution and eventual imprisonment before the appeals process played out, “the purest expression of the weaponization of the justice system” of the past administration’s targeting of Trump and his advisers.
Oversight Republicans — and some Democrats — are expected to pass resolutions holding the Clintons in contempt out of committee later Wednesday.
From there, other House Republicans told The Post Tuesday that they would vote to approve those contempt resolutions in the lower chamber.
“If you want to go down the path,” Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said, “Good luck in prison.”
“Are they above the law? Hell no,” added Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.).
“They’re going to be held in contempt of Congress, and they need to be jailed if they don’t come in here and speak to Congress,” Van Orden said. “They are not special. They’re American citizens.”
