US President Donald Trump has asked the Justice Department to investigate the relationship between one of his Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton, and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
But the request came shortly after a trove of newly released emails raised questions about President Trump’s own relationship with Epstein.
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On Friday, President Trump again claimed on social media that the email was a distraction. He compared them to investigations into Russian election interference and links to the 2016 presidential campaign.
President Trump said the email was a “hoax” and wrote, “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia fraud, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats.”
He also sought to shift scrutiny of his actions to Democrats and financial institutions, claiming they had deeper ties to Epstein than he did.
“Epstein was a Democrat. He is a Democratic problem, not a Republican problem!” Trump wrote, adding, “Don’t waste your time with Mr. Trump. I have a country to run!”
In the second of two lengthy posts, President Trump said he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate former President Bill Clinton, as well as Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, and the bank JPMorgan Chase.
newly released email
The Epstein scandal has proven to be a persistent headache for Trump during his second administration, as he faces bipartisan pressure to release all documents related to the case and address his involvement.
Mr. Epstein, a wealthy financier, was known for his interactions with powerful people, including Mr. Trump and Mr. Clinton, as well as former British prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was stripped of his royal titles last month.
These associations have long raised questions about how Mr. Epstein has been able to evade responsibility.
Hundreds of women have accused Epstein of sexual abuse and human trafficking. In 2008, Epstein was convicted in Florida of sexual abuse and solicitation of a minor, but critics deemed his plea deal too lenient.
He was in prison on federal sex trafficking charges when he died by suicide in 2019. The circumstances of his death have fueled conspiracy theories, and his high profile in society has led some to believe there was a cover-up.
On Wednesday, as the longest government shutdown in U.S. history came to an end, President Trump’s relationship with Epstein was once again in the spotlight.
The House was in session for the first time in 54 days to vote on a funding bill to end the 42-day government shutdown.
But that morning, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released three e-mail excerpts from conversations between Mr. Epstein, his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and author Michael Wolff, all of which discussed Mr. Trump. They seem to suggest that Trump knew about Epstein’s sexual relationships.
“I want you to understand that the dog that isn’t barking is Trump. (The victim) spent hours with him in my house,” Epstein wrote in one email.
In another article, Epstein told Wolff: “Of course he knew about the girls because he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
A third email from Mr. Wolf suggested that Mr. Trump had been to Mr. Epstein’s home and on a plane, and in an interview with CNN they discussed how Mr. Trump would respond to these visits.
The Trump administration immediately began doing damage control, with White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt calling the release of the emails selectively redacted and a “smear” campaign by Democrats.
But later that day, Republican leadership on the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 emails from the Epstein case file containing additional conversations about Mr. Trump.
For example, in a 2017 email to Summers, Epstein wrote, “I’ve met some very bad people, but none as bad as Trump. He doesn’t have a single decent cell in his body. So, yes, he’s dangerous.”
ongoing controversy
In a message Friday, President Trump claimed the emails were an attempt to distract from the prolonged government shutdown, during which Democrats failed to negotiate protections for health care subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.
“Democrats are doing everything in their power to push the Epstein hoax again, despite the Justice Department’s release of 50,000 pages of documents to escape the shame of their bad policies and losses, especially the shutdown,” President Trump said.
He also criticized Republican supporters who are pushing for more Epstein files to be released, arguing that Republicans are siding with Democrats over him.
“Some of the weaker Republicans are so soft and stupid that it has fallen into their hands,” he wrote.
This week is not the first time the current Trump administration has faced controversy over the Epstein scandal. For example, in February, Attorney General Bondy told Fox News in a television interview that he had a “list of clients” for Epstein, which he said was “on my desk right now for me to review.”
The existence of a supposed “client list” was a key element in the conspiracy theory that Epstein blackmailed powerful people to carry out his orders. Some of Trump’s own officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel, promoted the conspiracy theory even before he took office.
But in July, the Justice Department and FBI released a joint memo denying the existence of a “client list,” sparking a backlash from Trump supporters. Bondi claimed he made a gaffe during an interview with Fox News in February.
Later that month, media reports emerged that Mr. Bondi had explained to Mr. Trump that his name was included in the full text of the Epstein files, which have not yet been released.
Trump himself spoke out about his relationship with Epstein in the same month, saying he had severed ties with a financier accused of poaching young female employees from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
“When I heard about it, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you to take our people,'” Trump told reporters. “Then, not long after that, he did it again. And I said, ‘Get out of here.’
Clinton puts banks under a microscope
Ms. Clinton is similarly under intense scrutiny for her ties to Mr. Epstein. Before his conviction, the financier visited Mr. Clinton at the White House, and Mr. Clinton admitted to traveling on Mr. Epstein’s jet.
Clinton has not yet commented on Trump’s threat of investigation, but has denied knowledge of Epstein’s abuses in the past.
“President Clinton knows nothing about the horrific crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida years ago, or the crimes he was recently charged with in New York,” President Clinton’s press secretary, Angel Urena, posted on social media in 2019.
Financial institutions are also under pressure to explain their involvement in Epstein’s affairs.
In 2023, for example, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $75 million settlement to survivors of Mr. Epstein’s abuse after plaintiffs alleged that the financial institution profited from Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking scheme and failed to denounce his unusual conduct.
Later that year, JPMorgan Chase also struck a deal with Epstein’s survivors, agreeing to pay a $290 million settlement.
“We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to facilitate a heinous crime,” the bank said in a statement at the time.
Similar lawsuits have since been filed, including one filed last month against Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon (BNY). At a hearing this week, the two banks asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.
Still, pressure on the Trump administration remains high, especially as the House reopens.
The House of Representatives is back in session and Democrat Adelita Grijalva has been sworn in as its new representative. She provided the critical 218th signature on the release petition to force the House to vote on releasing all of the government’s Epstein files.
The bill was a bipartisan effort led by Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, an ardent supporter of President Trump, acknowledged this week that he plans to hold a vote next week, although his chances in the Senate are uncertain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly downplayed the effort.
“It’s a completely pointless exercise. It’s completely moot now. We might as well just do it,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said as he walked with reporters on Wednesday. “So they have 218 signatures. That’s fine. We’ll do it.”
