Former President Bill Clinton sat for a deposition before the House Oversight Committee on Friday, where he faced questions about a now-infamous photograph showing him relaxing in a hot tub with an unidentified woman. The photo was taken during a 2002 trip to Asia that Clinton took on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet, the Lolita Express, alongside Epstein himself and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Clinton insisted he did "nothing wrong" and denied having sex with the woman, whose face was covered by a black rectangle in the image released as part of the Department of Justice's file dumps. He also denied knowing who she was, according to a source.
The photo, according to The Post, was taken in the Emperor suite of the Empire Hotel in Brunei, a room that runs $20,000 a night. This was just one year after Clinton left office.
Flight logs made public in court proceedings trace the trip in detail. On May 22, 2002, the Lolita Express picked up Clinton at a U.S. naval air base in Japan. On board were Epstein, Maxwell, Epstein associate Sarah Kellen, Clinton's chief advisor Doug Band, someone named Mike, and two women listed as "Janice" and "Jessica."
The entourage stopped in Hong Kong for an evening, then spent two nights in Shenzhen, China, before landing in the Brunei capital of Bandar Seri Begawan on May 25. There, Clinton played golf and had dinner with Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who has been accused of hosting sex parties with underage girls.
The trip was described at the time as related to work for the Clinton Foundation. The Sultan, for his part, donated between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton presidential library through the foundation.
That's quite a donor relationship.
The hot tub image isn't the only one. Additional photos show Clinton together in the pool with Maxwell and a mystery woman. Epstein was photographed sitting at the piano in sweatpants. The pictures paint a portrait of casual familiarity among people who, the public has been assured for years, barely knew each other.
Clinton has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. That denial has become a refrain so practiced it barely registers anymore. But the photographs, the flight logs, and the DOJ files are not denials. They are records. And records do not change their story depending on who is asking.
For years, the Clinton-Epstein connection was treated by much of the media as a conspiracy theory unworthy of serious scrutiny. Reporters who pressed the question were dismissed. Outlets that covered the flight logs were labeled tabloids. The polite consensus held that whatever Epstein did, the 42nd president of the United States couldn't possibly have been entangled in it.
The DOJ files and the House Oversight Committee's willingness to put Clinton under oath tell a different story. These are not anonymous internet posts. They are government proceedings and official records, the kind of evidence that the institutional press usually demands before taking a story seriously. The evidence arrived. The seriousness, from those same outlets, remains conspicuously absent.
Consider the contrast. When allegations surface against figures on the right, the media apparatus moves at wartime speed. Investigations are launched. Panels are convened. Sources are granted anonymity with the generosity of a bartender on New Year's Eve. But a former Democratic president photographed in a hot tub during an overseas trip on a convicted sex trafficker's jet? The temperature in most newsrooms barely rises.
The deposition before the House Oversight Committee is a significant step. Clinton answered questions under oath, which carries legal weight that press conferences and carefully worded statements from spokespeople do not. What he said, and what he refused to say, will become part of the congressional record.
The broader Epstein files continue to surface through DOJ releases. Each dump brings new names, new details, and new questions about who knew what and when. The public has waited years for this information. The fact that it is finally emerging through official channels rather than leaks and lawsuits is itself a kind of progress.
Bill Clinton flew on a convicted pedophile's private jet to a $20,000-a-night hotel suite in Brunei, sat in a hot tub with an unidentified woman, and then spent two decades insisting none of it meant anything. The photos say otherwise. So do the flight logs. Now, so does a congressional deposition.
The record is building. The question is whether anyone with power will do something with it.