Hillary Clinton lost it on MAGA lawmakers Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert as the former first lady’s Epstein deposition went off the rails.
Clinton’s deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday was released on YouTube by the GOP Oversight Committee on Monday. The upload revealed the moment Clinton, 78, stormed out of the meeting when it was revealed that Boebert, the U.S. representative for Colorado’s 4th congressional district, had leaked a photo of Clinton testifying to a MAGA influencer.
“I’m done with this!” the former secretary of state barked, raising her hands. “You can hold me in contempt from now until the cows come home.”
The deposition was heated even before the photo leak. The first flashpoint came when Mace asked how Clinton knew President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. But as Clinton tried to answer, Mace repeatedly interrupted.
She had been trying to explain that she knew Lutnick from her time as the senator representing New York, from 2001 to 2009, when the law firm he ran, Cantor Fitzgerald, was decimated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“You asked the question, I’m gonna answer your question!” Clinton said, her eyes widening. “Now you’re gonna yell at me,” Mace responded.
“This was what I spent my time doing!” Clinton barked, leaning across the table and pointing at Mace. Beating the table, she added, “I was taking care of the people who lost 3,000 lives at [the] World Trade Center!”
Clinton secured over $20 billion in federal aid for rescue, recovery, and cleanup at Ground Zero as part of the 9/11 response and was a key advocate for the health needs of first responders.
What ensued after this was a cross-talk bonanza, with Mace trying to needle Clinton over apparently nonexistent emails between her and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “If you have an email with me asking Jeffrey Epstein for money...” Clinton challenged Mace.
Mace alleged that Clinton had tried to secure funding from Epstein for an “intimate event at Cantor Fitzgerald.” The former secretary of state denied this repeatedly.
The South Carolina congresswoman admitted she did not have any such emails and tried to yield her questioning. “No, I’m gonna finish answering the question, which I have a right to do,” Clinton said.
She explained that she knew Lutnick through her work after 9/11. “We worked together to rebuild downtown Manhattan; that is how I know Howard Lutnick,” she said, bringing to an end this particular exchange.
However, she was in for an even more bizarre flashpoint with Boebert. She had a question about “Pizzagate,” a conspiracy theory from the 2016 presidential campaign that falsely alleged a child sex ring had been uncovered tied to top Democrats.
Boebert cited the most bizarre claim from “Pizzagate,” namely that Clinton and others ran a child sex trafficking ring from the basement of a Washington, D.C.-based pizzeria. She wanted to know if Clinton thought the Epstein files made any reference to this.
Clinton, shaking her head in disbelief, responded, “Pizzagate was totally made up. It was an outrageous allegation that ended up hurting a number of people that caused a deranged young man to show up with his assault rifle and shoot up a local pizzeria. I can’t believe you’re even referencing it.”
When Boebert pressed, Clinton dismissed her questioning, “I don’t follow the crazy conspiracy stories that are online.”
“I really, I mean, I expected a lot of interesting questions today, but Pizzagate was not on my list,” an exasperated Clinton concluded.
Republicans forced Clinton to the deposition by threatening to hold the former secretary of state and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, in contempt of Congress for resisting subpoenas in the Oversight Committee’s investigation into Epstein. Neither Hillary nor Bill Clinton has been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
