Trump himself is mentioned throughout the thousands of pages of Epstein emails, but his call for investigations — which AG Pam Bondi quickly answered — named only Democrats.

Donald Trump on Friday directed the Justice Department to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement with financial institutions and prominent political figures — a move quickly agreed to by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

While the late financier’s emails, which the House Oversight Committee released this week, contained correspondence mentioning people on both sides of the aisle — including the president himself — Trump named only Democrats as potential targets.

“Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” Trump said in a lengthy post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump added.

Bondi responded to the post a few hours later on X, saying she was assigning the task to Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Clayton “is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead. As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people,” Bondi wrote.

A spokesperson for Clinton said the released emails “prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing.”

“The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else,” the spokesperson said in a statement Friday evening.

NBC News has reached out to representatives for Hoffman, Summers and JPMorgan Chase for comment. None of the people Trump named in his post were accused of wrongdoing in the sex trafficking case against Epstein, who was charged with sexually abusing numerous teenage girls at his homes in New York City and Palm Beach, Florida.

Clinton, his former Treasury Secretary Summers and LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic donor Hoffman have all said they regret ever associating with Epstein.

Trump’s post comes after thousands of emails from the Epstein estate were released by the House Oversight Committee this week, including many that referenced Trump’s connections to the convicted sex offender, who died in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.

In one of the emails, Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls,” but didn’t directly accuse him of any wrongdoing. In another, Epstein referred to Trump, who was in his first term as president at the time, writing, “I am the one able to take him down,” but the exchange did not provide context and occurred about six months before Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges.

The newly released documents showed that Summers was in frequent email contact with Epstein until the year he died, despite the financier having served time for soliciting a minor in 2008 and being named in dozens of lawsuits accusing him of sexually abusing underage girls.

In one March 2019 exchange, Summers and Epstein had a conversation about a woman Summers was interested in.

Summers has been previously quoted as saying that he felt regret for “my past associations with Mr. Epstein.”

Hoffman invited Epstein and former MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito to a 2015 dinner in Palo Alto with the likes of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, according to a report in Axios. Hoffman told the website he believed Epstein had been vetted by MIT. Both were donors to the school.

“The abuse described by Jeffery Epstein’s survivors is abhorrent, horrific, and disgusting,” Hoffman told the website in a 2019 email.

“My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015. Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice. For this, I am deeply regretful,” the email said.

JPMorgan Chase was Epstein’s banker for 15 years, and has settled lawsuits from his victims and the U.S. Virgin Islands alleging the bank facilitated his sex trafficking enterprise. The victims’ suit was settled for $290 million, and the U.S.V.I. suit was settled for $75 million. The settlements did not involve admissions of liability.

Asked to comment on Trump’s post, spokeswoman Patricia Wexler said, “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts” and had “ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex-trafficking charges.”

Trump accusers join Epstein survivors in plea to Congress to release files

“Deliver a promise the American people have awaited for far too long,” they implored lawmakers in a letter.

Four women who have accused President Donald Trump of inappropriate sexual contact signed onto a letter sent Friday to Congress by survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, demanding the release of all the files on the accused sex trafficker.

They were joined by four relatives of Virginia Giuffre, an outspoken Epstein accuser who died by suicide in April.

“Dear Esteemed Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives,” the letter began. “You have the ability to vote to release the Epstein files, and with it, deliver a promise the American people have awaited far too long. We implore you to do so.”

Writing “there is no middle ground here,” the letter writers said the crimes committed by Epstein, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and their co-conspirators, “exposed a double standard of justice, where rich and powerful men and women evade repercussions.”

The Trump accusers who signed the letter are Alva Johnson, Natasha Stoynoff, Karena Virginia, and Amy Dorris.

Alva Johnson sued Trump over the alleged misconduct, but dropped the suit in 2019 citing fears for her safety. She said at the time she still stands by her allegations. Trump has denied engaging in inappropriate behavior with all four women.

While it is well-documented that Trump and Epstein were once friends, the president has repeatedly denied any involvement in — or prior knowledge of — Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. Trump has said the two had a falling out, reportedly around 2007, after he discovered Epstein was stealing employees from the Mar-a-Lago club. Trump has never been charged with any criminal activity involving the now dead Manhattan financier.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson on Friday called scrutiny into Trump’s past ties with Epstein a “hoax” and a political “distraction.”

“Democrats and the mainstream media knew about Epstein and his victims for years and did nothing to help them while President Trump was calling for transparency, and is now delivering on it with thousands of pages of documents,” she told NBC News in a statement.

“We won’t be distracted, and the entire Administration will continue fulfilling the promises the President was elected on, including cutting the Biden-era price hikes,” Jackson continued.

Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. Maxwell was convicted in 2022 on federal sex trafficking charges in connection with Epstein’s crimes and is reportedly trying to get her prison sentence commuted.

The letter to Congress appeared a day after Epstein accusers Liz Stein and Jess Michaels, in an interview with NBC News, urged Congress to compel the Justice Department to release all of the Epstein files. Both Stein and Michaels signed the letter to Congress.

On Wednesday, emails released by the House Oversight Committee revealed, among other things, that Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” but didn’t accuse him of any wrongdoing.

Some emails in which Epstein mentioned Trump included the redacted name of a victim, who the White House and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee identified as Giuffre.

The committee said on social media that the name was not redacted when it received the documents.

In one of those emails, Epstein wrote that Giuffre spent hours at his house with Trump. But Giuffre never accused Trump of any wrongdoing.

Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s brother, told NBC on Thursday he condemned the administration for unredacting Giuffre’s name, calling it “a disrespect to survivors.”

“I don’t personally know if she was involved with President Donald Trump. She said it herself that he was always very nice to her,” Roberts said.

Roberts is a signatory on the letter to Congress along with his wife, Amanda, one of Giuffre’s brothers, Danny Wilson, and Wilson’s wife, Lanette Wilson.

Maria Farmer, the first woman to file a criminal complaint against Epstein, also signed the letter. So did Farmer’s sister, Annie Farmer, who also said Epstein and Maxwell preyed on her.

 

Trump withdraws his support for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

Trump said he would consider backing a primary challenger to Greene, who was once a staunch ally but has been increasingly critical of the president in recent weeks.

President Donald Trump issued a scathing social media post Friday against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., saying that he was “withdrawing his support and Endorsement” of someone who had previously been one of his closest allies.

The announcement is a significant fracture in the president’s MAGA coalition. In recent weeks, Greene has been questioning Trump’s priorities. In an interview with NBC News that published just hours before his Truth Social post, Greene criticized Trump for spending so much time focused on foreign policy rather than an “America First” agenda.

In his repudiation of Greene, Trump boasted that the U.S. was the “HOTTEST” country in the world now thanks to his accomplishments and suggested that Greene was simply going after him for political gain.

“All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, alleging that Greene was also bitter that he discouraged her from running for Senate or governor.

She “didn’t have a chance (unless, of course, she had my Endorsement — which she wasn’t about to get!),” Trump wrote.

“She has told many people that she is upset that I don’t return her phone calls anymore, but with 219 Congressmen/women, 53 U.S. Senators, 24 Cabinet Members, almost 200 Countries, and an otherwise normal life to lead, I can’t take a ranting Lunatic’s call every day,” he added.

In response, Greene said in a social media post that Trump had “attacked me and lied about me.”

Greene speculated that Trump was upset over the re-emergence of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Next week, the House is set to vote to compel the Justice Department to release all its files against the late financier and convicted sex offender, who was friends with powerful public officials — including Trump.

“It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” Greene wrote on X. “But really most Americans wish he would fight this hard to help the forgotten men and women of America who are fed up with foreign wars and foreign causes, are going broke trying to feed their families, and are losing hope of ever achieving the American dream.”

“I have supported President Trump with too much of my precious time, too much of my own money, and fought harder for him even when almost all other Republicans turned their back and denounced him,” she added. “But I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump. I worship God, Jesus is my savior, and I serve my district GA14 and the American people.”

Trump also suggested Friday night that he would potentially support a primary challenger to Greene in her House district.

Greene, once one of Trump’s staunchest allies, has become unlikely critic. She’s broken with him on issues including the Obamacare subsidies at the heart of the recently ended government shutdown, foreign policy and efforts to compel the administration to release the Epstein files.

Greene, who said Trump personally inspired her to run in 2022, was first elected to office in 2020. Last year, Greene easily held onto her seat, winning more than 64% of her district’s vote.

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