President Donald Trump, in a social media post Friday, said he will “ask Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, along with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JP Morgan, Chase and many other people and institutions, to determine what was happening to them and him.”
Bondi announced later Friday that he had tapped Jay Clayton, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to lead the investigation ordered by Trump into Epstein’s involvement with high-profile Democrats and JP Morgan Chase.
“Thank you, Mr. President. SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I asked him to take the lead,” Bondi wrote on X in response to Trump’s social media post. “As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to provide answers to the American people.”
In July, the Justice Department and the FBI released a memo about Epstein concluding that “there was no incriminating ‘client list'” and “no credible evidence was found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.”
The Justice Department and FBI said at the time that no further charges were expected in connection with their investigations into Epstein, as they “did not uncover evidence that would predicate an investigation against unindicted third parties.”
Donald Trump listens as First Lady Melania Trump speaks at a signing ceremony for the “Furthering the Future” executive order in the East Room of the White House on November 13, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement provided to ABC News: “The government had damning information about [Epstein’s] crimes and did not share it with us or with other banks. We regret any association we may have had with the man, but we did not help him commit his heinous acts. “We ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.”
In 2023, JPM Chase settled two lawsuits, without admission of wrongdoing, alleging that the bank ignored red flags that Epstein was involved in international sex trafficking. The financial giant paid $290 million in a class-action lawsuit filed by Epstein’s survivors and another $75 million to the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein maintained a private island property.
Clinton has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has denied ever visiting Epstein’s private island. No Epstein survivor or associate has ever made a public allegation of wrongdoing or inappropriate behavior by Clinton in connection with her previous relationship with Epstein.
Clinton traveled internationally on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003 on four major trips, a total of 26 flight legs, according to flight records of Epstein’s private jets made public during the civil litigation. None of the flight records of Epstein’s planes that have emerged in the litigation indicate that Clinton (or Trump) was ever on board for a trip to Epstein’s island.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser, said she had met Clinton on the island, according to court records and testimony from her defamation case against Maxwell, which she settled in 2017.
Maxwell and Epstein have said Clinton was never on the island. In one of the emails released from Epstein’s estate this week, Epstein wrote to a journalist in 2015 to deny what appear to be Giuffre’s allegations.
“Clinton was NEVER there, ever,” Epstein wrote.
But as far back as 2015, Trump has hinted that Clinton’s trip with Epstein might have involved some compromising behavior.
Trump’s call for a Justice Department investigation comes after House Democrats were released emails from Epstein’s estate that mentioned Trump by name, including one post that referred to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, said after Epstein’s arrest in 2019 that they had not spoken in more than a decade after a fight. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the new emails at a news conference earlier this week, saying they “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
Bipartisan pressure continued for the administration to release the rest of Epstein’s files. This week, Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva became the 218th signature needed on a petition to compel the Justice Department to make those records public.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement Friday that the panel’s investigation into Epstein has “caused panic” for Trump. Garcia, responding to Trump’s social media post, said Trump is “trying to deflect serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
“The president has not explained why he will not release the files to the American people. Or why sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a cushy, low-security prison after her interview with Trump’s former personal lawyer,” Rep. Garcia added.
Epstein committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking girls and women.
