What happened
Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton said yesterday they have no intention to testify in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. In a letter to committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) (pictured above), the Clintons said they had already given the panel what “little information we have” on Epstein’s “horrific” crimes, and subpoenas for them to appear for closed-door depositions were “legally invalid” and clearly driven by “partisan politics.” Comer said he would move to hold both Clintons in contempt of Congress. 

Who said what
Comer’s “relentless efforts” to force the Clintons to testify “reflect his overall approach to his panel’s Epstein inquiry,” The New York Times said. He has sought to “deflect focus” from President Donald Trump’s own “ties to the convicted sex offender” and his administration’s mishandling of the Epstein case, and to “shift the spotlight onto prominent Democrats.” Bill Clinton, like Trump, “had a well-documented friendship” with Epstein “throughout the 1990s and early 2000s,” The Associated Press, but neither president has been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein’s crimes. 

Clinton’s lawyers sent Comer a letter Monday night laying out their case for why the subpoenas are “invalid and legally unenforceable,” citing the same decades of legal precedent Trump used in 2022 to thwart a Democratic subpoena to testify about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Comer said his committee would not try to compel testimony from Trump.

What next?
If Comer’s committee moves to hold the Clintons in contempt next week, “the full House would next vote on whether to refer the matter to the Justice Department for possible prosecution,” The Washington Post said. The “seldom-used congressional power” can result in anything from a “symbolic” rebuke to a year in jail, Politico said, but “there’s reason to believe” the Clintons may face “dramatic consequences,” given the Trump Justice Department’s willingness to target his “perceived enemies.”

What happened
The Trump administration said yesterday it will strip Somali immigrants of their Temporary Protective Status. This latest move in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign was announced amid a controversial immigration operation in Minnesota, the state with the largest population of Somali Americans.

Who said what
“Temporary means temporary,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday. “Allowing Somali nationals” to remain in the U.S. runs “contrary to our national interests,” she said, and circumstances in Somalia “have improved to the point that it no longer meets” the criteria for TPS status. Trump last month called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they “come from hell.”

The “hundreds of people” affected by yesterday’s announcement represent a “small subset of immigrants with TPS protections,” The Associated Press said. But the White House has also threatened to “revoke the citizenship of any naturalized immigrant” found guilty of fraud, “singling out those from Somalia,” said USA Today. And in recent days, ICE agents have “arrested dozens of refugees in Minnesota,” mainly from Somalia, who entered the U.S. legally after “rigorous vetting,” The New York Times said. “Most of the detainees,” including children and mothers separated from their toddlers, “were being transferred to facilities in Texas,” according to lawyers and immigrant advocates.

What next?
“Somali nationals with TPS are now required to leave the United States by March 17,” when the latest extension of their protections expires, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said on social media. If they don’t leave on their “own terms,” DHS said in a separate post, they will “receive a visit from ICE.”