Democrats have threatened to call on First Lady Melania Trump to testify in the Jeffrey Epstein probe if they retake the House in November.
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia would not rule out the current first lady being grilled in the future in an interview on CNN early Friday.
Mrs. Trump has largely remained out of the spotlight in the investigation into the convicted sex offender, as her husband, President Donald Trump, faces mounting pressure to answer questions under oath. But she has been an alleged associate of Epstein and his accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell.
CNN’s line of questioning about the first lady to Garcia came after former First Lady Hillary Clinton was deposed in the Epstein probe on Thursday, despite claiming she had never met the pedophile.
“We want the first lady, who we know had a relationship with, well, with Jeffrey Epstein, to come in under oath and testify to the oversight committee,” Garcia said. “That is the new precedent that Republicans wanted to set here.”
The Democratic lawmaker had already been repeatedly calling for the president to also testify before lawmakers.
In her own deposition on Thursday, former Secretary Clinton was grilled over what she knew about her husband’s relationship with Epstein, which raised the question on why the current first lady wouldn’t be asked the same about her own husband, whose name appears thousands of times in the released files.
“The House Republicans have set a new precedent and that new precedent now includes bringing in for depositions presidents, former presidents and first ladies and then asking those first ladies as they did yesterday about how their husbands felt and about what their husbands were doing,” Garcia said.
Garcia admitted that he did believe some of the questioning of Clinton on Thursday “was not appropriate,” but he argued the president and first lady should “do the right thing” and answer their questions.
Garcia warned that there would be a “very long list of people” called in and that “anyone that we believe had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein on day one will have a subpoena from our committee” if Democrats take control of the House.
There are several pictures of the first lady pictured with both Epstein and Maxwell, as well as her then-boyfriend, Donald Trump.
Epstein files released at the end of January also showed that the first lady was once in direct contact with Maxwell in 2002, more than two years before she married Trump.
One email between Trump and Maxwell was signed “Love, Melania.”
Maxwell, who is now serving 20 years in prison for sex-trafficking, responded to the email greeting Trump as “Sweet pea” and promised to try to call her.
The first lady has largely avoided answering any questions about the Epstein probe, which has been an ongoing crisis for her husband’s administration.
A reporter tried to ask the first lady about Maxwell being moved to a cushy minimum-security prison at her White House event earlier this month.
But the first lady immediately shut down the question and remained focused on the event at hand.
