U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the day he is set to sign an executive order on “Fostering the Future” in the East Room of the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., Nov. 13, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump on Friday said that he is asking the Department of Justice to investigate relationships between notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and former President Bill Clinton, JPMorgan Chase, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaire tech investor Reid Hoffman, and others.
Trump’s statement comes as he faces renewed pressure over his own past friendship with Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
Emails released by the House Oversight Committee this week show Epstein and others talking about Trump.
In a 2018 email thread about Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty charges related to hush money payments on behalf of Trump, Epstein wrote, “I know how dirty donald is.”
In another thread that same year, Epstein wrote of Trump: “its wild. because I am the one able to take him down.”
Trump also faces a looming vote by the full House of Representatives on a petition demanding the release of criminal investigative files about Epstein that the DOJ refuses to make public despite prior promises to do so by Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials.
“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 wrote Friday in a Truth Social post.
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump wrote.
“Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!”
Trump has denied having known about Epstein’s decades-long abuse of underage girls and young women.
The two men had a falling out in the early 2000s.
Among the email threads released Wednesday the House Oversight Committee is one written in April in which Epstein told author Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.” The email does not explain what exactly Epstein was referring to.
It is unclear what the phrase “knew about the girls” meant.
In another email, written in April 2011, Epstein told his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell: “I want you to realize that the dog that hasn’t barked is trump.”
Epstein, in the same thread,d said that a person whose name was redacted in the email but whom lawmakers identified as a victim of his “spent hours at my house with” Trump.
“He has never once been mentioned,” Epstein added.
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