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The US Department of Justice has confirmed that it will investigate pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein's alleged ties to major banks and several prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton.
President Donald Trump said Friday he would ask Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate Epstein's "involvement and relationship" with Clinton and others "to determine what was going on with them and with him."
Bondi then said on social media that he asked U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead an investigation, adding that the department "will pursue this with urgency and integrity to provide answers to the American people."
Clinton has strongly denied having any knowledge of Epstein's crimes.
Interest in Epstein's dealings was revived this week after US lawmakers released more than 20,000 pages of documents from his estate, including some that mention Trump.
In addition to Clinton, Trump said he asked the Department of Justice (DoJ) to investigate banks JP Morgan and Chase, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, who is also a prominent Democratic donor.
"Epstein was a Democrat and he is a Democrat's problem, not a Republican's problem!" he wrote on social media.
"Everyone knows about him, don't waste your time with Trump. I have a place to run!"
A JPMorgan Chase spokesman said the firm regrets "any association" it had with Epstein and added that the firm "did not help him commit his horrific acts."
It is not clear whether Trump has already made the request to the Justice Department. The Justice Department has not yet commented.
Trump's request comes ahead of a House vote next week on whether the Justice Department should release all of its files related to the investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.
Democrat Adelita Grijalva's swearing-in before the chamber on Wednesday triggered the move, as she immediately signed a petition to dismiss the request for the release of the files.
Her signature was the 218th, the last needed to trigger a vote in the ballot box. Four Republicans joined Democrats in demanding the vote.
Documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday appear to show correspondence between Epstein and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers dating back to October 2017.
In an email, Summers gives Epstein his opinion of Trump at the beginning of his presidency, writing: "DJT is the luckiest guy in the world in terms of opposition, economy, etc., he still thinks his world is going to fall apart."
A representative for Summers told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that the former Treasury official and former president of Harvard University "deeply regrets having been in contact with Epstein after his conviction."
The documents also included email exchanges between Epstein and his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.
In an email, sent in 2011, Epstein writes to Maxwell: “I want you to understand that the dog that didn’t bark is Trump... spent hours at my house with him.”
Trump was friends with Epstein for years, but the president has said they fell out in the early 2000s, two years before Epstein was first arrested. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing involving Epstein. While he was discussed in some of the messages released this week, he did not send or receive them.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the US House Oversight Committee, accused Trump of trying to "distort attention from the serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein."
On Friday, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said it would be a "grave miscalculation" for Trump to oppose the release of materials related to Epstein.
Greene was among four other House Republicans, Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, Thomas Massie, who joined Democrats in signing an impeachment petition calling for the release of the files.
"I really support women and I think they deserve to be what we're fighting for," she told the BBC's American partner, CBS News.
In a letter to Congress, Epstein's survivors and the family of Virginia Giuffre, a prominent accuser of his, urged US lawmakers to vote in favor of releasing the files.
"As you gather with your family this season, remember that your primary duty is to your constituents. Look into the eyes of your children, your sisters, your mothers, and your aunts," the letter says.
"Imagine if they had fallen prey to them. Imagine if you were a survivor yourself. What would you want for them? What would you want for yourself? When you vote, we will remember your decision at the ballot box."
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