At Trump’s urging, Bondi says US will investigate Epstein’s ties to
Clinton and other political foes
[November 15, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JESSE BEDAYN
NEW YORK (AP) — Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top
federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to
Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay
Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which
congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from
Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what
supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of
the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been
accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social
platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to
investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and
others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn
founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not
Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant
JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many
other people and institutions.”
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing
to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special
counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference
in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations,
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law
enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”
In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We
did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against
uncharged third parties.”
The president's demand for an investigation — and Bondi's quick
acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice
Department's traditional independence from the White House since Trump
took office.
It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump
himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like
the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual
misconduct by Epstein's victims.
None of Trump's proposed targets were accused of sex crimes
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company
regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his
heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to
share it with us or other banks," she said. The company agreed
previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein's victims, who had sued
arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said
through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s
crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known
victims.
Clinton's deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: "These
emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is
noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and
who knows what else."
Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting prostitution
from an underage girl, but was spared a long jail term when the U.S.
attorney in Florida agreed not to prosecute him over allegations that he
had paid many other children for sexual acts. After serving about a year
in jail and a work release program, Epstein resumed his business and
social life until federal prosecutors in New York revived the case in
2019. Epstein killed himself while awaiting trial on sex trafficking
charges.
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were
friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were
among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence
Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his
death.
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This photo provided by the New York State Sex Offender Registry
shows Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017. (New York State Sex Offender
Registry via AP, File)
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part,
other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes
against children.
Summers, who served in Clinton’s cabinet and is a former Harvard
University president, previously said in a statement that he has “great
regrets in my life” and that “my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a
major error of judgement.”
On social media Friday night, Hoffman called for Trump to release all
the Epstein files, saying they will show that “the calls for baseless
investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and
slander.” He added, "I was never a client of Epstein’s and never had any
engagement with him other than fundraising for MIT." Hoffman bankrolled
writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against
Trump.
After Epstein’s sex trafficking arrest in 2019, Hoffman said he’d only
had a few interactions with Epstein, all related to his fundraising for
MIT’s Media Lab. He nevertheless apologized, saying that “by agreeing to
participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I
helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice.”
Bondi, in her post, praised Clayton as “one of the most capable and
trusted prosecutors in the country” and said the Justice Department
“will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the
American people.”
Trump called Clayton "a great man, a great attorney,” though he said
Bondi chose him for the job.
Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during
Trump’s first term, took over in April as U.S. attorney for the Southern
District of New York — the same office that indicted Epstein and won a
sex trafficking conviction against Epstein’s longtime confidante,
Ghislaine Maxwell, in 2021.
Trump changes course on Epstein files
Trump suggested while campaigning last year that he’d seek to open up
the government’s case files on Epstein, but changed course in recent
months, blaming Democrats and painting the matter as a “hoax” amid
questions about what knowledge he may have had about Epstein’s yearslong
exploitation of underage girls.
On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three
Epstein email exchanges that referenced Trump, including one from 2019
in which Epstein said the president “knew about the girls" and asked
Maxwell to stop.
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of having
“selectively leaked emails” to smear Trump.
Soon after, Republicans on the committee disclosed a far bigger trove of
Epstein's email correspondence, including messages he sent to longtime
Trump ally Steve Bannon and to Britain's former Prince Andrew, now known
as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Andrew settled a lawsuit out of court
with one of Epstein's victims, who said she had been paid to have sex
with the prince.
The House is speeding toward a vote next week to force the Justice
Department to release all files and communications related to Epstein.
“I don’t care about it, release or not,” Trump said Friday. “If you’re
going to do it, then you have to go into Epstein’s friends," he added,
naming Clinton and Hoffman.
Still, he said: “This is a Democrat hoax. And a couple, a few
Republicans have gone along with it because they’re weak and
ineffective.”
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Bedayn reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Chris Megerian
aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.
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