Top Dem flips GOP playbook to compel Trump to testify on Epstein: 'It's time'

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democratic lawmaker on the House Oversight Committee, weaponized Republicans’ own tactic against them Friday in his demand for President Donald Trump to be dragged before Congress to testify to his knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein.

Garcia made the remarks in Chappaqua, New York, ahead of a closed-door House Oversight Committee hearing at which former President Bill Clinton is scheduled to testify about his knowledge of Epstein, who visited the White House at least 17 times during the Clinton administration. Clinton had also flown on Epstein’s private jet several times in the early 2000s.

In dragging Clinton before the committee, however, Oversight Republicans, perhaps unknowingly, had established a new precedent that Garcia said should also apply to the current sitting U.S. president.

“Republicans have now set a new precedent, which is to bring in presidents and former presidents to testify,” Garcia said. “So we're once again going to make that call: we are now asking and demanding that President Trump officially come in and testify in front of the Oversight Committee!”

Like Clinton, Trump was also friends with Epstein, having flown on his private jet several times in the 1990s and attended events with him. Epstein once said he was Trump’s “closest friend for ten years,” and in 2002, Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women,” noting that “many” were “on the younger side.”

Trump’s name also appears extensively in the Justice Department’s release last month of around 3.5 million files on Epstein, many of which have been scrubbed by the DOJ without explanation.