By STEPHEN GROVES and MATT BROWN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are starting a push Wednesday to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, opening the prospect of the House using one of its most powerful punishments against a former president for the first time.

Related Articles

Trump will talk domestic policy at Davos, where his quest for Greenland could overshadow other goals

Suspect charged in vandalism of Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home pleads not guilty

IRS head announces a shake-up on the eve of the 2026 tax season

FACT FOCUS: Trump highlights familiar false claims as he reviews his first year back in office

Doctors in Minnesota decry fear and chaos amid Trump administration’s immigration crackdown

The contempt proceedings are an initial step toward a criminal prosecution by the Department of Justice that, if successful, could send the Clintons to prison.

Still, ahead of a meeting Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee to prepare the charges, there were signs of a thaw. The Clintons, both Democrats, appeared to be searching for an off-ramp to testify, and passage of contempt charges through the full House was far from guaranteed, requiring a majority vote — something Republicans increasingly struggle to achieve.

The repercussions of contempt charges loomed large, given the possibility of a substantial fine and even incarceration. While the charges have historically been used only as a last resort, lawmakers in recent years have been more willing to reach for the option. The Oversight Committee chair, Rep, James Comer of Kentucky, initiated the contempt proceedings after the Clintons refused for months to fulfill a House Oversight Committee subpoena for their testimony in the panel’s Epstein probe.

The clash was the latest turn in the unpredictable Epstein saga, as Congress investigates how he was able to sexually abuse dozens of teenage girls for years. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial. The public release of case files has shown details of the connections between Epstein and both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, among many other high-powered men.

Clinton, Trump and many others connected to Epstein have not been accused of wrongdoing. Yet lawmakers are wrestling over who receives the most scrutiny.

“They’re not above the law. We’ve issued subpoenas in good faith,” Comer told The Associated Press on the eve of the contempt proceedings. “For five months we’ve worked with them. And time’s up.”

Comer rejected an offer Tuesday from an attorney for the Clintons to have Comer and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, interview Bill Clinton in New York, along with staff.

How the Clintons have responded

The Clintons released a scathing letter last week criticizing Comer for seeking their testimony at a time when the Department of Justice is running a month behind a congressionally mandated deadline to release its complete case files on Epstein.

Behind the scenes, however, a longtime attorney for the Clintons, David Kendall, has tried to negotiate an agreement. Kendall raised the prospect of having the Clintons testify last Christmas and Christmas Eve, according to the committee’s account of the negotiations.

The Clintons have also argued that the subpoenas are invalid because they don’t serve any legislative purpose and say that they did not know about Epstein’s abuse. They have offered the committee written declarations about their interactions with Epstein.

“We have tried to give you the little information we have. We’ve done so because Mr. Epstein’s crimes were horrific,” the Clintons wrote in a letter to Comer last week.

How contempt proceedings have been used

Contempt of Congress proceedings are rare, used when lawmakers are trying to force testimony for high-profile investigations, such as the infamous inquiry during the 1940s into alleged Communist sympathizers in Hollywood or the impeachment proceedings of President Richard Nixon.

Most recently, Trump’s advisers Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon were convicted of contempt charges for defying subpoenas from a House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by a mob of the Republican president’s supporters at the Capitol. Both men spent months in prison.

The Jan. 6 committee also subpoenaed Trump in its inquiry, but Trump’s lawyers resisted the subpoena, citing decades of legal precedent they said shielded ex-presidents from being ordered to appear before Congress. The committee ultimately withdrew its subpoena.

No former president has ever been successfully forced to appear before Congress, although some have voluntarily appeared.

The Democrats’ response

Democrats have largely been focused on advancing the investigation into Epstein rather than mounting an all-out defense of the Clintons, who led their party for decades. They’ve said Bill Clinton should inform the committee if he has any pertinent information about Epstein’s abuses.

A wealthy financier, Epstein donated to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and Hillary Clinton’s joint fundraising committee ahead of her 2000 Senate campaign in New York.

Democrats embraced the call for full transparency on Epstein after Trump’s return to the White House, particularly after Attorney General Pam Bondi stumbled on her promise to release the entirety of the unredacted Epstein files to the public. The backlash scrambled traditional ideological lines, leading Republicans to side with Democrats demanding further investigation.

The pressure eventually resulted in a bipartisan subpoena from the committee that ordered the Justice Department and Epstein estate to release files related to Epstein. Republicans quickly moved to include the Clintons in the subpoena.

Comer indicated Tuesday that he would insist that the subpoena be fulfilled by a transcribed deposition of Bill Clinton.

“You have to have a transcript in an investigation,” he said. “So no transcript, no deal.”

By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that he has agreed to join U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace in a departure from an earlier stance when his office criticized the makeup of the board’s committee tasked with overseeing Gaza.

Norway and Sweden, meanwhile, said they would not be joining the board at this stage, following in the footsteps of France, which has expressed concern the board could seek to replace the United Nations as the mediator in global conflicts.

Chaired by Trump, the board was originally envisaged as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. The Trump administration’s ambitions have since expanded into a more sprawling concept, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting the board will soon broker global conflicts.

Trump headed for the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, where he is expected to provide more details about the board.

Israel, Azerbaijan and Kosovo say yes, Norway and Sweden say no

Netanyahu’s office had previously said the composition of the Gaza executive committee — which includes Turkey, Israel’s key regional rival — was not coordinated with the Israeli government and ran “contrary to its policy,” without clarifying its objections.

Related Articles

Today in History: January 21, Concorde jet takes first supersonic passenger flight

Barcelona commuter train crashes, killing 1, days after deadly train collision in Spain

Australia’s Parliament passes anti-hate speech and gun laws after Sydney attack

China meets initial soybean purchase goal, but Trump’s shifting trade policy could disrupt deal

US forces seize seventh sanctioned tanker linked to Venezuela in Trump’s effort to control its oil

Netanyahu’s decision to join the board could now put him in conflict with some of the far-right allies in his coalition, such as Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has criticized the board and called for Israel to take unilateral responsibility for Gaza’s future.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said Wednesday he was also joining, as did Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani.

Norway’s state secretary, Kristoffer Thoner, said in a statement Wednesday that Norway would not join the board because it “raises a number of questions that requires further dialogue with the United States.” He said Norway would not attend the signing ceremony in Davos.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on the sidelines of Davos on Wednesday that his country isn’t signing up for the board as the text currently stands, Swedish news agency TT reported. Sweden hasn’t yet formally responded.

Much of Western Europe, Russia and China have not said whether they will join

Those who previously joined the board are the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Morocco, Vietnam, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Argentina. Bahrain and Egypt said Wednesday they would also join.

Invitation letters from Trump also have been sent to the United Kingdom, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Egypt, Paraguay, Turkey, India, Slovenia, Croatia, Thailand and the European Union’s executive arm.

There are many unanswered questions. It was not immediately clear how many other leaders would receive invitations and how broad the board’s mandate will be. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday if the board should replace the United Nations, Trump said: “It might.”

The makeup of the board

Under the ceasefire deal, the board’s Gaza executive committee will be in charge of implementing the tough second phase of the agreement. That includes deploying an international security force, disarming the Hamas group and rebuilding the war-devastated territory. It will also supervise a newly appointed committee of Palestinian technocrats who will be running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs.

The White House says its members include Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi; Hassan Rashad, director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Agency; Emirati minister Reem Al-Hashimy; Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay; and Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ former deputy prime minister and a Mideast expert.

Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician and U.N. Mideast envoy, is to serve as the Gaza executive board’s representative overseeing day-to-day matters.

Separate from the Gaza executive committee, the founding executive committee’s members include U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga and Trump’s deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.

By LORNE COOK, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and slap tariffs on its backers pose a challenge to Europe’s security, principles and prosperity, a top EU official said on Wednesday.

Related Articles

Today in History: January 21, Concorde jet takes first supersonic passenger flight

Barcelona commuter train crashes, killing 1, days after deadly train collision in Spain

Australia’s Parliament passes anti-hate speech and gun laws after Sydney attack

China meets initial soybean purchase goal, but Trump’s shifting trade policy could disrupt deal

US forces seize seventh sanctioned tanker linked to Venezuela in Trump’s effort to control its oil

“All these three dimensions are being tested in the current moment of transatlantic relations,” European Council President António Costa said. He has convened an emergency summit of the EU’s 27 national leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Trump’s determination to “acquire” the mineral-rich island in the Arctic region, for what he claims are security reasons, has undermined trust in the United States among allies in Europe and Canada.

Denmark angered Trump after sending a military “reconnaissance” force to Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory. A small numbers of troops from several European nations joined, and Denmark is weighing a longer-term military presence there.

Costa said EU leaders are united on “the principles of international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty,” something the bloc has underlined in defending Ukraine against invasion by Russia, and which is now threatened in Greenland.

In a speech to EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, he also stressed that only “Denmark and Greenland can decide their future.”

He insisted that “further tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement.” The lawmakers must endorse that deal made last July, but have threatened not to do so over Trump’s tariff threats.

Costa said that “we stand ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies, against any form of coercion. And the European Union has the power and the tools to do so.”

EU leaders have been galvanized by Trump’s threats over Greenland, and are rethinking their relations with America, their long-time ally and the most powerful member of NATO.

“Appeasement is always a sign of weakness. Europe cannot afford to be weak — neither against its enemies, nor ally,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, long a staunch supporter of strong transatlantic ties, posted on social media on Tuesday.

“Appeasement means no results, only humiliation. European assertiveness and self-confidence have become the need of the moment,” Tusk wrote.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who manages trade on behalf of EU countries, warned that the bloc is “at a crossroads.” Should tariffs come, she said, “we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination.”

In Strasbourg, she told the lawmakers that the commission is working on “a massive European investment surge in Greenland” to beef up its economy and infrastructure, as well as a new European security strategy.

Security around the island itself should be boosted with partners like the U.K., Canada, Norway and Iceland, among others, von der Leyen said.

By JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (AP) — President Donald Trump heads to the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps on Wednesday where his ambitions to wrest control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could tear relations with European allies and overshadow his original plan to use his appearance at the gathering of global elites to address affordability issues back home.

Related Articles

Suspect charged in vandalism of Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home pleads not guilty

IRS head announces a shake-up on the eve of the 2026 tax season

FACT FOCUS: Trump highlights familiar false claims as he reviews his first year back in office

Doctors in Minnesota decry fear and chaos amid Trump administration’s immigration crackdown

China meets initial soybean purchase goal, but Trump’s shifting trade policy could disrupt deal

Trump arrives for the international forum at Davos on the heels of threatening tariffs on Denmark and seven other allies unless they negotiate a transfer of the semi-autonomous territory — a concession the European leaders indicated they are not willing to make. Trump said the tariffs would start at 10% next month and climb to 25% in June, rates that would be high enough to increase costs and slow growth, potentially hurting Trump’s efforts to tamp down the high cost of living.

The president in a text message that circulated among European officials this week also linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize. In the message, he told Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

In the midst of an unusual stretch of testing the United States’ relations with longtime allies, it seems uncertain what might transpire during Trump’s two days in Switzerland.

On Tuesday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Davos panel he and Trump planned to deliver a stark message: “Globalization has failed the West and the United States of America. It’s a failed policy,” he said.

“This will be an interesting trip,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Tuesday evening for his flight to Davos. “I have no idea what’s going to happen, but you are well represented.”

In fact, his trip to Davos got off to a difficult start. There was a minor electrical problem on Air Force One, leading the crew to turn around the plane about 30 minutes into the flight out of an abundance of caution and delaying the president’s arrival in Switzerland.

Things are unloaded from Air Force One after the plane, carrying President Donald Trump to the World Economic Form in Davos, experienced a minor electrical issue after departure, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, and returned to Joint Base Andrews, Md. Trump will board a second plane to complete the trip. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Wall Street wobbled on Tuesday as investors weighed Trump’s new tariff threats and escalating tensions with European allies. The S&P 500 fell 2.1%, its biggest drop since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.8%. The Nasdaq composite slumped 2.4%.

“It’s clear that we are reaching a time of instability, of imbalances, both from the security and defense point of view, and economic point of view,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in his address to the forum. Macron made no direct mention of Trump but urged fellow leaders to reject acceptance of “the law of the strongest.”

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that should Trump move forward with the tariffts, the bloc’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional.” She pointedly suggested that Trump’s new tariff threat could also undercut a US-EU trade framework reached this summer that the Trump administration worked hard to to seal.

“The European Union and the United States have agreed to a trade deal last July,” von der Leyen said in Davos. “And in politics as in business — a deal is a deal. And when friends shake hands, it must mean something.”

Why Trump is talking about housing in Davos

Trump, ahead of the address, said he planned on using his Davos appearance to talk about making housing more attainable and other affordability issues that are top priorities for Americans.

But Trump’s Greenland tariff threat could disrupt the U.S. economy if it blows up the trade truce reached last year between the U.S. and the EU, said Scott Lincicome, a tariff critic and vice president on economic issues at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

“Significantly undermining investors’ confidence in the U.S. economy in the longer term would likely increase interest rates and thus make homes less affordable,” Lincicome said.

Trump also on Tuesday warned Europe against retaliatory action for the coming new tariffs.

“Anything they do with us, I’ll just meet it,” Trump said on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight.” “All I have to do is meet it, and it’s going to go ricocheting backward.”

Davos — a forum known for its appeal to the global elite — is an odd backdrop for a speech on affordability. But White House officials have promoted it as a moment for Trump to try to rekindle populist support back in the U.S., where many voters who backed him in 2024 view affordability as a major problem. About six in 10 U.S. adults now say that Trump has hurt the cost of living, according to the latest survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

U.S. home sales are at a 30-year low with rising prices and elevated mortgage rates keeping many prospective buyers out of the market. So far, Trump has announced plans to buy $200 billion in mortgage securities to help lower interest rates on home loans, and has called for a ban on large financial companies buying houses.

Trump will promote his ‘Board of Peace’

The White House has said Trump plans to meet with leaders on the sidelines of the forum, after he gives his keynote address. There are more than 60 other heads of state attending.

On Thursday, Trump plans to have an event to talk about the “Board of Peace,” a new body meant to oversee the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, and possibly take on a broader mandate, potentially rivaling the United Nations.

Fewer than 10 leaders have accepted invitations to join the group so far, including a handful of leaders considered to be anti-democratic authoritarians. Several of America’s main European partners have declined or been noncommittal, including Britain, France and Germany.

Trump on Tuesday told reporters that his peace board “might” eventually make the U.N. obsolete but insisted he wants to see the international body stick around.

“I believe you got to let the U.N. continue, because the potential is so great,” Trump said.

Madhani reported from Washington.