Hours after former President Bill Clinton received a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday morning regarding his history with the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, speculation mounted in the press and among Clinton watchers that he would decline to comply and not testify before the committee.
Were the 42nd president to do so, he would follow in the path of two of four former presidents who were subpoenaed and rejected an order to testify before a congressional committee.
On Nov. 14, 2022, Donald Trump defied a subpoena from the House committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump responded by filing a lawsuit seeking to avoid testifying or provide information to the Jan. 6 committee, whose mandate expired before the requirement of Trump's compliance was determined.
In a similar manner, former President Harry Truman declined to comply with a House committee investigating his promotion of Harry Dexter White — who was accused of being a communist spy — to head the International Monetary Fund after the then-president received an FBI report in 1946 stating that White was spying for Russia.
Speaking at a tense press conference in New York on Nov. 14, 1953, Truman read a letter to Harold Velde, R-Ill., chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee, saying, "I feel constrained by my duty to the people of the United States to decline to comply with the subpoena."
Truman explaining that if his belief that the separation of powers of the executive and legislative branches of government as well as the independence of the presidency were to have "any validity at all," it must apply equally to a president in office and to one who has left office.
Truman did add, however, that the doctrine of separation of powers and independence of the presidency would apply to a former president assuming the inquiry related to matters connected to his administration.
Were questions about Epstein dealing with Clinton's association with him as a private citizen after leaving office, then he would be on shallow ground invoking Truman's refusal of the subpoena.
Truman told reporters he would be happy to appear before the committee if it chose to ask about his life as a private citizen before or after his presidency.
Clinton is the fifth former president to be subpoenaed to appear before a congressional committee. Aside from Truman and Trump, Theodore Roosevelt testified before the House Committee investigating U.S. Steel in August 1911 and before the Senate Subcommittee on Privileges and Elections on Oct. 4, 1912.
William Howard Taft testified before Congress several times while co-chair of the National War Labor Board during World War I and chief justice of the U.S. from 1921 to 1930.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.