(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump, in a social media post on Friday, said he 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."
Bondi announced later Friday she has tapped Jay Clayton, the current U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to lead the Trump-ordered investigation of 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’ve 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 deliver answers to the American people."
Back in July, the DOJ and FBI released a memo on Epstein concluding there was "no incriminating 'client list'" and "no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions."
The DOJ and FBI said at the time no further charges were expected in connection with their probes into Epstein as they "did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties."
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement provided to ABC News: “The government had damning information about [Epstein’s] crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks. We regret any association we had with the man, but 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 -- with no admission of wrongdoing -- alleging that the bank ignored red flags that Epstein was engaged in international sex-trafficking. The financial giant paid $290 million in a class action filed by Epstein survivors and another $75 million to the government of the US Virgin Islands, where Epstein maintained a private island estate.
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 to his prior relationship with Epstein.
Clinton traveled internationally on Epstein’s aircraft in 2002 and 2003 on four major trips -- a total of 26 flight legs, according to flight logs from Epstein's private jets made public during civil litigation. None of the flight records of Epstein’s planes that have surfaced in litigation indicate Clinton -- or Trump -- was ever aboard for a trip to Epstein’s island.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a prominent Epstein accuser, said that she had met Clinton on the island, according to court records and deposition testimony from her defamation case against Maxwell, which settled in 2017.
Maxwell and Epstein have said Clinton never was on the island. In one of the emails released from the Epstein estate this week, Epstein wrote to a reporter in 2015 to deny what appear to be allegations from Giuffre.
"Clinton was NEVER EVER there, never," Epstein wrote.
But as far back as 2015, Trump has insinuated that Clinton's travel with Epstein might've involved some compromising behavior.
Trump's call for a Justice Department investigation comes after House Democrats released emails from Epstein's estate that mentioned Trump by name, including a 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 friendly with Epstein for years, said after Epstein’s arrest in 2019 that they hadn’t spoken in more than a decade after having a falling out. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the new emails in a press briefing 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 the Epstein files. This week, Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva became the 218th signature needed on a discharge petition to compel the DOJ to make those records public.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement on Friday that the panel’s Epstein investigation has "panicked" Trump. Garcia, responding to Trump’s social media post, said Trump is "trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein."
“The President has not explained why he won’t 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 died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of trafficking young girls and women.