Trump says he’s asking Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to slew of high-profile figures

By Adam Cancryn, Donald Judd, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump said Friday he will ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to many other high-profile figures, in an extraordinary step that comes just days after Democrats released emails from the late Epstein that mention him.

Trump announced the directive in a Truth Social post that accused Democrats of trying to revive attention to his past ties with Epstein, contending they 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 wrote.

The move represents the president’s most significant effort yet to discredit the push by Democrats and some Republicans to release all of the Epstein case files, and to divert focus away from himself.

Trump earlier this week tried and failed to convince Republicans to block a discharge petition in the US House forcing a vote on the release of the Justice Department’s Epstein files, with the White House even holding a Situation Room meeting with one key GOP lawmaker who had signed on ahead of it receiving its decisive 218th signature. Speaker Mike Johnson has since said he’ll schedule the vote next week, which is now expected to attract significant support from rank-and-file GOP lawmakers.

On Friday, Trump vented his frustration in a series of Truth Social posts, blasting Republicans backing the Epstein files release as “soft and foolish” and repeatedly branding the issue a “Hoax.”

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump wrote in one post.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CNN has reached out to Clinton, Summers and Hoffman.

In a statement, JPMorgan Chase spokesperson Patricia Wexler said the bank “ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.”

JPMorgan paid $290 million in 2023 to settle a class action lawsuit filed by Epstein’s survivors that alleged it turned a blind eye to unusual cash transactions that they claimed enabled Epstein’s sex trafficking. JPMorgan also paid $75 million to settle with the US Virgin Islands. The bank did not admit or deny any wrongdoing in either settlement.

“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” Wexler said. “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”

CNN’s Kara Scannell contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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