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WASHINGTON — Two days after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails in which late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein discussed President Donald Trump, Trump said he will ask the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate Epstein’s relationships with several other prominent men and institutions.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and JPMorgan Chase bank should be investigated.
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump wrote. “Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘island.’ Stay tuned!!!”
In a 2019 statement, Clinton’s office denied that he traveled to Epstein’s island or knew anything about his crimes, though it acknowledged the former president traveled on the late financier’s plane accompanied by staff, supporters and his Secret Service detail. In statements to various media outlets, Hoffman, Summers and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon have all said they regret their association with Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in a federal prison.
Epstein served about a year in jail after pleading guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from someone under age 18 but went on to renew relationships with many influential figures in business, academics and politics.
In response to Trump’s post, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X, “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”
She said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton will take the lead on the case, calling him “one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country.”
In July, the president said his relationship with Epstein ended after he “stole” some young female employees from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, was a teenager when she began working as a locker-room attendant at the club in the summer of 2000. She said she left Mar-a-Lago after being recruited by Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking minors.
While Trump has vociferously denied any implications that he knew about Epstein’s sexual predation, House Democrats say a trio of emails they released this week suggest otherwise. A 2011 email said Trump had spent hours at Epstein’s house with a sex trafficking victim, who the White House later revealed was Guiffre. In a 2019 email with author Michael Wolff, Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” and called Trump the “dog that hasn’t barked.”
In an earlier Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said, “The Democrats are doing everything in their withering power to push the Epstein Hoax again, despite the DOJ releasing 50,000 pages of documents, in order to deflect from all of their bad policies and losses, especially the SHUTDOWN EMBARASSMENT, where their party is in total disarray, and has no idea what to do,” he wrote, two days after he signed legislation to end the government’s 43-day funding fight.
Responding to the Democrats’ release of the Epstein emails, the GOP-led Oversight Committee made 23,000 pages of Epstein files available to the public Wednesday. The same day, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., swore in Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., who provided the final signature needed on a discharge petition that enables a House vote to compel the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files. Johnson said that vote will take place next week. All 214 House Democrats and four Republicans signed on to the petition.
“Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish,” Trump wrote Friday. “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem! Ask Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, and Larry Summers about Epstein, they know all about him, don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!”
In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday night, California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee said: “It’s clear that there’s a lot of questions about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump, and those have got to be answered.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., one of the Republicans who signed the discharge petition, told “CBS Mornings” on Friday that the Epstein files have “needed to come out for a very long time, and the American people have demanded it.”
“The American people deserve to see transparency from their government. Rich, powerful people should not be protected. And it’s a message to victims everywhere … that the government will not protect the predators,” said Greene, who added that she has talked to Epstein victims who said Trump did nothing wrong.
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Susan Carpenter
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