US President Donald Trump told law enforcement chiefs on Friday, November 14, to investigate links between Jeffrey Epstein and former President Bill Clinton as he sought to deflect growing questions about his own ties to the late alleged sex trafficker.

Under mounting pressure from the release of a new trove of Epstein emails, Trump also demanded the Justice Department and FBI probe banking giant JP Morgan Chase and former Harvard president Larry Summers, who served as Clinton’s treasury secretary.

The 79-year-old Republican accused Democrats of pushing the “Epstein hoax” after emails emerged in which the disgraced financier suggested Trump “knew about the girls” and spent hours with one of the victims at his house. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, but questions about his long friendship with Epstein have dogged him since his return to the White House in January.

Epstein died in prison in 2019 – by suicide, authorities ruled – before he could face trial on federal sex charges. But questions over his alleged masterminding of a sex ring where powerful men were provided with underaged girls have only mounted.

Trump said on Truth Social that he would be “asking” Attorney General Pam Bondi and 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.”

Bondi said that the Justice Department would “pursue this with urgency and integrity” and named senior New York prosecutor Jay Clayton to “take the lead” on Trump’s request.

‘Damning information’

The move comes despite the fact that the FBI and Justice Department said in a memo in July that they had not uncovered evidence that would justify an investigation of uncharged third parties. That memo also sparked a huge backlash in Trump’s MAGA movement after it said a “client list” Bondi claimed to have been reviewing did not in fact exist.

Democratic former President Clinton has long faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein and flew on his private plane, although he too has never been accused of wrongdoing in the scandal. Epstein said that Clinton had “never ever” been to his notorious private island in the Caribbean, according to several emails in the latest trove dating from 2011 and viewed by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

JPMorgan Chase – which in 2023 agreed to pay $290 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by victims of Epstein, its former client – rejected Trump’s claims. “The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” it said in a statement to AFP. “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”

‘Country to run’

Trump’s message broke two days of silence over the scandal, which has overshadowed his victory lap after Democrats agreed to end the longest government shutdown in US history.

He has still not commented on camera on the email traffic between Epstein and friends which said Trump had spent “hours” with Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims and the main accuser. The White House said that Giuffre, who died by suicide in April, had cleared Trump of any wrongdoing and had declared that Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier.”

Trump’s efforts to put a lid on the scandal have repeatedly failed, fueled partly by the fact that there are photos and videos of him interacting with Epstein decades ago. Another problem is that Trump and some of his close allies – including his FBI chief Kash Patel – had in the past promised his right-wing base that they would seek the release of all the evidence against Epstein.

The US House of Representatives is to vote as early as next week on demanding that the White House release the files, after a rebellion by a handful of MAGA lawmakers provided sufficient votes. Trump on Friday made clear he does not want the effort to proceed.

“Don’t waste your time with Trump. I have a Country to run!” he said on social media.