Topline
Attorney General Pam Bondi said she’s appointed a prosecutor to handle President Donald Trump’s request to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship to Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and others—as Trump alleges the “Epstein hoax” involved “Democrats, not Republicans.”
President Donald Trump listens as first lady Melania Trump speaks at a signing ceremony for the “Fostering the Future” executive order in the East Room of the White House on November 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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Key Facts
Trump said Friday on Truth Social he would ask the Justice Department and FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with the three men, JPMorgan Chase “and many other people and institutions to determine what was going on with them,” despite repeatedly downplaying the ongoing interest in Epstein as a “hoax.”
Bondi retweeted Trump’s post and said she’s appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, to “take the lead” on the matter, vowing the agency “will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”
The statement comes days after House Democrats released a new trove of emails from Epstein in which he frequently discussed Trump.
The president has repeatedly dismissed the latest revelations linking him to Epstein—and the continued interest in him, generally—refusing for days to answer reporters’ questions about the emails, in which Epstein alleged Trump spent “hours” with victim Virginia Giuffre and “knew about the girls.”
Trump repeated his claims Friday that Democrats released the emails to distract from the government shutdown and said Epstein “was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!”
Tangent
The probe is Trump’s latest example of the Trump administration targeting his political enemies. At least four high-profile Democrats have been accused by the Trump administration of mortgage fraud, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and most recently, Rep. Eric Slawell, D-Calif., though only James has faced criminal charges. Former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump critic, was indicted on separate charges of lying to Congress.