NEW YORK (AP) — Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages
of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump, Bill Clinton, Summers and Hoffman were all mentioned in the documents released this week — a collection of emails Epstein exchanged with friends and business associates, news articles, book excerpts, legal papers and other material.
Epstein kept in touch with Summers and Hoffman via email, according to the documents, and wrote to other people about Trump and Clinton being in his company at various times over the years — though nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. Neither Clinton nor Trump have been accused of wrongdoing by any of the women who say Epstein abused them.
Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement.”
Message seeking comment were left for Hoffman through his investment firm, Greylock, and with a spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase.
After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”
None of Epstein’s victims have accused Hoffman of misconduct.
Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”
Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.
Trump has raised questions about Epstein’s death in jail a month after his arrest and suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up the government’s case files.
But Trump has changed course in recent months — blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” — amid questions about his own friendship with Epstein and what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong exploitation of underage girls.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019 in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls” and another from 2011 in which he said Trump had “spent hours” at his house with a sex trafficking victim.
The emails did not say what Trump knew and did not give any details of what Trump did while at Epstein’s house. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having “selectively leaked emails” to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed what they said was an additional 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. Among them were emails Epstein wrote, including many where he commented — often unfavorably — on Trump’s rise in politics and corresponded with journalists.
Other emails show Epstein keeping up friendly relationships with academic and business leaders, including Summers and Hoffman, well after he pleaded guilty in 2008 and served 13 months in jail for procuring a person under 18 for prostitution.
Epstein and Summers discussed politics, arranged calls with each other and spoke on more intimate matters, according to the emails, including about a woman Summers had interactions with. Epstein’s advice to him: “You care very much for this person. you might want to demonstrate that.”
Epstein exchanged just a few emails with Hoffman, who later bankrolled writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Trump. In one exchange, in 2015, Epstein told the billionaire: “heyy it looks like your diet program has worked.”
Hoffman replied: “slow progress. planning to see you in August. Hope your well.” __
Bedayn reported from Denver.
