Democratic lawmakers entered statements into the congressional record, but said little publicly about Bill and Hillary Clinton defying a bipartisan subpoena.

Bill and Hillary Clinton refused to sit this week for depositions about the former president`s past friendship with the late financier and sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, casting their defiance as a battle against the "dismantling of America" by President Donald Trump.

But the subpoena demanding the Clintons come to Capitol Hill didn`t just come from Trump`s allies. A unanimous, bipartisan vote in the House Oversight Committee approved it, and Democrats on the committee don`t seem particularly eager to jump to the defense of the couple that once defined their party - at least not publicly.

"We want all of the people who we`ve subpoenaed to come in," Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the Democrats most involved in pushing for transparency on the Epstein matter, told HuffPost on Wednesday.

Khanna and the other Democrats on the committee have been on the path to throwing the Clintons under the bus since this summer, when the party went all-in on damaging Trump by playing up his long-time friendship with Epstein, since the GOP response linking Epstein to Clinton was predictable.

Democrats refused to participate in the Republican effort to dramatize the Clintons` subpoena defiance. On Tuesday and Wednesday, even though they knew the Clintons weren`t coming, Republicans packed into the deposition room, then came out and complained about the former president and first lady not showing up.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) also complained that no Democrats joined him in pretending to wait for the Clintons.

"The Democrats were real eager to hear about Bill Clinton, and then somebody came along and told them they need to stand down," Comer said Tuesday, seemingly speculating about Democratic messaging tactics. "I`ve never seen a Democrat not show up for a deposition."

Though Democrats didn`t hold a press conference or put out a release about the depositions this week, they did submit a statement to the formal record during Wednesday`s proceedings, complaining that Comer has "relentlessly pursued" Hillary Clinton while making little effort to enforce its subpoena for the Justice Department`s files on Epstein, which the Justice Department has not fully obeyed.

"Adding to these concerns," the Democrats` statement continued, "is President Trump`s direction to his Attorney General, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation - via a Truth Social post - to initiate a criminal investigation into prominent Democrats, including President Clinton, to distract from his own close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein."

The statement - which was circulated Wednesday by Clinton aides, not congressional Democrats - also noted that both Bill and Hillary Clinton submitted declarations for the record. In his submission, the former president said he had no knowledge of Epstein`s criminal activities but acknowledged spending time with him after his presidency, which ended in 2001, about five years before police began looking into Epstein`s recruitment of girls for sexual massages.

During his work for the Clinton Foundation, Clinton said, he accepted offers to use Epstein`s private plane.

"In the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein offered a plane that was large enough to accommodate me, my staff, and my U.S. Secret Service detail, in support of visiting the Foundation`s philanthropic work," Clinton said in the statement. He said he never visited Epstein`s notorious private island.

Hillary Clinton, for her part, said she`d never flown on Epstein`s plane.

Blowing off a congressional subpoena can have serious consequences, including prison time, if the Justice Department decides to prosecute. Comer`s committee intends to approve contempt resolutions against the Clintons next week, a prelude to a full House vote that could result in a criminal referral to the department.

It`s possible the Clintons could argue that because they provided some information, they didn`t actually blow off the subpoena. But Republicans don`t think it`s a good argument.

"The Clintons were subpoenaed for depositions, not written statements," a Comer spokesperson said. "The House Oversight Committee offered flexibility in scheduling those depositions, but the Clintons instead delayed and obstructed the process."

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), a former chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said Democrats didn`t really need to go to bat for the Clintons.

"I don`t think they need much defending. I mean, the subpoena is so absurd, and the bias and purpose of the majority in the committee to rewrite history is so obvious," Nadler told HuffPost.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), a senior member of the oversight committee, said Republicans were merely using the Clintons to distract from Trump`s relationship with Epstein.

"But you know, there are a couple of photos, and he was on the plane with his security detail. So I think the evidence is thin, but if there might be some way he could help the investigation, then we would hope he would do so voluntarily," Lynch said.