President Donald Trump moved aggressively to deflect scrutiny on Friday after a new batch of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s private emails \u2014 released this week by the House Oversight Committee \u2014 resurfaced his own long-scrutinized relationship with the disgraced financier.<\/p>\n
Hours after the documents circulated widely online, Trump took to Truth Social with a sweeping demand<\/a>: he said he will ask Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to investigate Epstein\u2019s ties to \u201cBill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions,\u201d claiming that \u201call arrows point to the Democrats.\u201d <\/p>\n Bondi quickly agreed, posting<\/a> on X<\/a> Friday afternoon that she had assigned Attorney Jay Clayton to the case. Clayton is a high-profile figure among Republicans, having chaired the SEC during Trump\u2019s first term and now acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Clinton has strongly denied<\/a> that he had knowledge of Epstein\u2019s crimes. In the emails, Epstein mentioned several times<\/a> that Clinton was \u201cnever on the island.\u201d However, the two knew each other<\/a> in the early 2000s. Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n On the other hand, Summers had a seemingly close and unusually personal relationship<\/a> with the disgraced financier who at times acted as his informal relationship coach. Newly released emails from 2017 to 2019 show the former Treasury secretary corresponding with Epstein regularly, sometimes multiple times a day, seeking advice about his interactions with a woman in London.<\/p>\n In one exchange, Summers lamented that the woman had grown distant: \u201cI said what are you up to. She said \u2018I\u2019m busy.\u2019 I said awfully coy u are,\u201d he wrote. Epstein replied within minutes, offering reassurance and strategy: \u201cshe\u2019s smart. making you pay for past errors. ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy \u2026 annoyed shows caring, no whining showed strength.\u201d <\/p>\n Other emails show Summers forwarding Epstein notes from the woman and asking whether he should respond. \u201cThink no response for a while probably appropriate,\u201d Summers wrote in one case. Epstein encouraged the silence, replying, \u201cShe\u2019s already begining to sound needy \ud83d\ude42 nice.\u201d <\/p>\n Summers has previously said<\/a> he regrets his past ties to Epstein. Summers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Hoffman, the LinkedIn<\/a> co-founder, billionaire investor and major Democratic donor, had an established relationship with Epstein, according to documents<\/a> reviewed by the Wall Street Journal<\/em>. Schedules show Epstein planned multiple trips with him\u2014including two visits to Epstein\u2019s island, Little St. James in 2014\u2014and arranged for Hoffman to stay overnight at his Manhattan townhouse before attending a \u201cbreakfast party\u201d with Bill Gates and others the next morning. <\/p>\n Hoffman now says he deeply regrets the interactions. \u201cIt gnaws at me that, by lending my association, I helped his reputation, and thus delayed justice for his survivors,\u201d he told the Journal<\/em>. \u201cUltimately I made the mistake, and I am sorry for my personal misjudgment.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoffman could not be reached for comment. <\/p>\n Trump\u2019s inclusion of JPMorgan comes after the bank paid out <\/a>more than $450 million in 2023 across multiple settlements related to its historic relationship with Epstein \u2014 including a $290 million agreement with a class of victims and a $75 million deal with the U.S. Virgin Islands. The bank has repeatedly said it \u201cdeeply regrets any association\u201d with Epstein and would not have kept him as a client had it known of his crimes. <\/p>\n JPMorgan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The release of the files \u2014 which Trump framed as an effort to expose an \u201cEpstein Hoax\u201d that he claims Democrats are weaponizing to distract from the shutdown\u2013 show Epstein repeatedly discussing Trump. They contradict Trump\u2019s own account of their split, and Epstein offers his private, often caustic assessments of the man who would become president. <\/p>\n Across messages with lawyers, acquaintances, reporters, academics, and political figures, Epstein invoked Trump constantly, often bragging that he possessed insider insight into Trump\u2019s private world. In one 2017 exchange, Epstein dismissed him sharply: \u201cyour world does not understand how dumb he really is. he will blame everyone around him.\u201d A year later, he described Trump as \u201cevil beyond belief, mad\u2026 nuts!!!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The emails also directly challenge one of Trump\u2019s most frequently repeated claims: that he expelled Epstein <\/a>from Mar-a-Lago for inappropriate behavior.\u00a0 <\/p>\n In a 2019 message to author Michael Wolff, Epstein flatly rejected the story: \u201cTrump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever.\u201dIn another email, Epstein claimed a woman who worked at the club had been involved with him and wrote, \u201cTrump knew of it, and came to my house many times during that period.\u201d The documents do not substantiate these assertions, and the White House has denied them. <\/p>\n One of the most explosive lines appears in a 2011 note to Ghislaine Maxwell: \u201cthat dog that hasn\u2019t barked is trump.. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.\u201d During a press conference<\/a>, the White House pointed to the testimony of Virginia Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser who committed suicide earlier this year<\/a> and said Trump did not participate \u201cin anything.\u201d <\/p>\n Epstein also imagined himself as holding leverage over Trump. In a December 2018 exchange, after someone suggested Trump\u2019s critics were simply trying to \u201ctake down\u201d the president, Epstein replied: \u201cyes thx. its wild. because i am the one able to take him down.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Donald Trump moved aggressively to deflect scrutiny on Friday after a new batch of Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s private emails \u2014 released this week by the House Oversight Committee \u2014 resurfaced his own long-scrutinized relationship with the disgraced financier. Hours after the documents circulated widely online, Trump took to Truth Social with a sweeping demand: he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Epstein repeatedly described Trump in blunt, often hostile terms<\/strong><\/h3>\n