President Donald Trump on Friday announced he is asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to a number of high-profile figures.
In a post on Truth Social, the president said that he is asking Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI “to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship” with the high-profile individuals and institutions “to determine what was going on with them, and him.” He named former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and JP Morgan Chase bank in the post.
“Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island,’” he added.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi responded to Trump’s announcement in a post on X later on Friday, saying she directed U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton of the Southern District of New York to lead the Epstein investigation.
“The Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people,” Bondi wrote.
Epstein was found dead in August 2019 in a Manhattan jail cell after being arrested on child sex trafficking charges.
JPMorgan Chase, Clinton, Summers, and Hoffman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
None of the people named in Trump’s post have been accused of criminal activity in connection to Epstein. All of the men have previously denied wrongdoing.
Clinton flew on Epstein’s private jet several times before his 2008 conviction, while Hoffman and Summers have said they socialized with him. All three men have expressed regret about their relationship with him.
A spokesperson for Clinton previously denied the former president went to the island that was owned by Epstein, Little St. James, also saying that Clinton hasn’t “spoken to Epstein in well over a decade” and “well before [Epstein’s] terrible crimes came to light.”
According to the documents that were released by the House committee, Epstein and Summers frequently spoke with each other on a range of topics via email.
More than two years ago, JPMorgan Chase reached a $75 million settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands that accused the financial institution of helping facilitate Epstein’s activities, officials in the U.S. territory said at the time. The bank told news outlets in a statement that the settlement did not include any admissions of liability.
JPMorgan issued a statement to news outlets at the time, saying: “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.”
Epstein had been a JPMorgan client from 1998 until 2013, when the New York-based bank terminated its relationship with him.
“As part of the settlement, JPMorgan has agreed to implement and maintain meaningful anti-trafficking measures, which will help prevent human trafficking in the future. This settlement is an historic victory for survivors and for state enforcement, and it should sound the alarm on Wall Street about banks’ responsibilities under the law to detect and prevent human trafficking,” Virgin Islands Attorney General Ariel Smith said in a statement in September 2023.