WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee advanced resolutions 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.

In bipartisan votes, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee approved the contempt of Congress charges, setting up potential votes in the House early next month. In a rare departure from party lines, some Democrats supported the contempt measures against the Clintons, with several progressive lawmakers emphasizing the need for full transparency in the Epstein investigation.

The votes were the latest turn in the Epstein saga as Congress investigates how the late financier was able to sexually abuse dozens of teenage girls for years.

“No witness, not a former president or a private citizen, may willfully defy a congressional subpoena without consequence. But that is what the Clintons did and that is why we are here,” Rep. James Comer, the chairman, said at the session on Wednesday.

The repercussions of contempt charges loomed large, given the possibility of a substantial fine and even incarceration. Still, there were signs of a potential thaw as the Clintons appeared to be searching for an off-ramp to testify. In addition, passage of contempt charges through the full House was far from guaranteed, requiring a majority vote — something Republicans increasingly struggle to achieve.

The Clintons have said they had nothing to do with Epstein for decades and are seeking a resolution to the dispute. This week, they offered to have the committee leadership and staff interview Bill Clinton in New York.

Comer rejected that offer Tuesday, insisting that any interview also have an official transcript.

What do lawmakers want to know from the Clintons?

The push in Washington for a reckoning over Epstein has shown details of the connections between the wealthy financier and both Bill Clinton and Trump, among many other high-powered men. Epstein killed himself in 2019 in a New York jail cell while awaiting trial.

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

A spokesman for the Clintons, Angel Ureña, said on social media that the Clintons are trying to help the Epstein investigation but that “both Clintons have been out of office for over a decade. Neither had anything to do with him for more than 20 years.”

Behind the scenes, longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall has tried to negotiate an agreement with Comer for months. Kendall raised the prospect of having the Clintons testify on Christmas and Christmas Eve, according to the committee’s account of the negotiations.

The Clintons, who contend the subpoenas are invalid because they do not serve any legislative purpose, have also offered the committee written declarations about their interactions with Epstein.

How Democrats are approaching the issue

Democrats have largely been focused on advancing the investigation into Epstein rather than mounting a defense of the Clintons, who led their party for decades. They agreed that 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.

“No president or former president is above the law,” the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, said at the hearing.

On Wednesday, Democrats tried to advance several changes to the contempt of Congress charges. Several argued that Hillary Clinton should be exempted because she has said she had very little personal interaction with Epstein. Democratic lawmakers also tried to downgrade the contempt of Congress resolution to a civil rather than criminal offense.

Democrats spent the hearing criticizing Comer for focusing on the Clintons when the Justice Department is running a month late on a congressionally-mandated deadline to publicly release its case files on Epstein. Comer has also allowed several former attorneys general to provide the committee with written statements attesting to their limited knowledge of the case.

The committee had also subpoenaed Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime confidant, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for a conviction on sex trafficking charges. But Comer declined to press for the interview after Maxwell's attorney indicated she would invoke Fifth Amendment rights in any deposition.

“It’s interesting that it’s this subpoena only that Republicans and the chairman have been obsessed about putting all their energy behind,” Garcia said.

Comer said the committee will interview Maxwell next month. Attorney General Pam Bondi will also appear before the House Judiciary Committee in February.

In the end, nine Democrats voted with all Republicans on the committee to advance contempt against Bill Clinton, and three Democrats — Reps. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — joined in the vote to advance the contempt resolution for Hillary Clinton.

Democrats embraced the call for full transparency on Epstein after Trump’s return to the White House, particularly after 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's estate to release files related to Epstein. Republicans quickly moved to include the Clintons in the subpoena.

Comer has indicated that he will insist that the subpoena be fulfilled by nothing less than a transcribed deposition of Bill Clinton.

“They’re going to have two weeks until this bill is on the floor,” he said Wednesday

How contempt proceedings have been used

Contempt of Congress proceedings are rare, used historically as a last resort 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 Navarro and Bannon spent months in prison.

The Jan. 6 committee also subpoenaed Trump in its inquiry. 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.

But some Republicans said they should face the same consequences for refusing to testify as Bannon and Navarro.

Rep. Andy Biggs, an Arizona Republican, said on social media that if the Clintons “aren’t perp walked, we will have failed the American people.”