Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised her voice, pointed her finger, and sparred with Rep. Nancy Mace during a deposition before the House Oversight Committee, with the South Carolina Republican pressing Clinton on her connection to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein fundraising.
Footage of the exchange, which took place Thursday at Clinton's home in Chappaqua, New York, was released Monday. According to the Daily Caller, it took Mace six months to secure the deposition.
The confrontation centered on a simple question: How did Clinton know Lutnick? Her answer turned into a lengthy detour through September 11th. The follow-up from Mace turned into a shouting match.
When Mace asked Clinton how she knew the former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and current Trump administration Secretary of Commerce, Clinton said she met Lutnick in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She described Cantor Fitzgerald losing more than 650 employees and called it one of the single greatest losses of life from that day. She noted that Lutnick was not in the towers when the planes struck because he had taken his child to kindergarten that morning. She called him "the man who lost the employees that he knew intimately including his brother."
Clinton then pivoted to her own record, saying she represented those killed on 9/11 while serving as a Democratic U.S. senator for New York and that she attended the memorials in the years after the terrorist attack.
Mace interjected. Clinton kept going, her voice rising:
"You asked the question, I am going to answer your question, this is what I spent my time doing, taking care of the people who lost 3,000 lives at World Trade Center. You asked me about Howard Lutnick."
It was a polished deflection. Mace wasn't asking about 9/11 memorials. She was asking about Epstein.
Mace shifted to offense. She claimed she had an email from Lutnick that showed him sending communications to Jeffrey Epstein and his associates to raise money for Clinton. Her description was specific:
"That there was an intimate event in an email that Howard Lutnick emailed to Epstein's people and Epstein to get him to come to your intimate event at Cantor Fitzgerald, a very small event. I am not going to put up with it. If you are going to yell at me that's fine, I'll yell right back. I am doing the job that you would not do and refused to do as Secretary of State."
Clinton fired back. She challenged Mace to produce an email showing that she personally asked Epstein for money.
"If you have an email of me asking Jeffrey Epstein for money, I didn't."
Notice the careful construction. Clinton denied asking Epstein for money herself. Mace's allegation was that Lutnick served as the intermediary, reaching out to Epstein's people to get Epstein to attend a fundraising event for Clinton. Those are two different claims, and Clinton answered the one Mace didn't make.
The exchange grew more personal. Mace, who has publicly identified as a survivor, told Clinton she was "a survivor trying to look out for other survivors." She accused Clinton of being "indignant" under questioning.
Clinton said she was "sympathetic" to Mace's "personal situation." The tone did not match the word.
The former first lady raised her voice and pointed her finger at Mace. Mace similarly raised hers. What was supposed to be a fact-finding deposition looked more like a cable news segment with better lighting.
The deposition is part of the House Oversight Committee's broader investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The committee released the full 4.5-hour deposition videos, which also included testimony from former President Bill Clinton.
The investigation has slowly gathered momentum, and this deposition represents the committee's effort to trace the financial and social networks surrounding Epstein. Mace's line of questioning suggests the committee is looking at whether prominent political figures benefited from Epstein-adjacent fundraising, even if they claim no direct relationship with the convicted sex trafficker.
The Clintons have spent decades cultivating the ability to be technically truthful while remaining substantively evasive. Thursday's deposition was a masterclass in the genre. Clinton answered questions about Lutnick by talking about 9/11. She denied asking Epstein for money when the allegation was that someone else did it on her behalf. She expressed sympathy for a survivor while shouting at her across a deposition table.
Six months to get her in the chair. Four and a half hours of testimony. And the question that started it all, how she knew Howard Lutnick, still doesn't have a straight answer.
