President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks on Democrats on Friday following the release of emails from the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In apparent retaliation for the revelations, President Trump accused Democrats of a “hoax” and announced he would call for a federal investigation into former President Bill Clinton, U.S. bank JP Morgan and Democratic Party officials’ involvement in Epstein, who died in 2019.
- context: Epstein, accused of child abuse, claims President Trump ‘knew about the girls’ in emails released by US Congress
- Look: President Trump has already promised to release Epstein’s files and suggested that the investor was murdered. Let’s fight to escape from the incident today.
President Trump claimed on his “Truth Social” platform that the opposition’s release of the emails last Wednesday was due to Democrats “doing everything in their power to reignite the Epstein hoax in waning power.” In a counterattack, the president said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI would be ordered to investigate Epstein’s “associations and relationships” with influential Democrats.
The emails suggest that Trump “spent many hours” with victims of the scheme at Epstein’s home and “knew the girls,” according to messages written by the financier himself in 2011. The message suggested that Mr. Trump’s knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking network was deeper than Mr. Trump himself has claimed since the case became widely publicized in July.
The revelations also increased pressure on the Trump administration to release all Justice Department files on Epstein. To prevent the request from progressing in Congress, President Trump unsuccessfully tried to persuade Republican lawmakers to block the initiative. The initiative will be voted on next week and is expected to be approved.
The president’s offensive comes at the most critical time in the Epstein scandal since 2019, when the billionaire committed suicide in his New York cell, according to an investigation. Democrats and some Republicans have since called for the full release of federal documents.
Trump, meanwhile, is trying to shift focus to Epstein’s former allies in the Democratic field, such as Bill Clinton. Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary in the Barack Obama administration; and Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a major donor to the Democratic Party. He also mentioned bank JPMorgan, which paid US$290 million (more than R$1 billion) to settle accusations that Epstein ignored warning signs while he was a client.
“This is yet another fraud by Russia, Russia, Russia, and all the evidence points to the Democrats,” the American president wrote. “Records show that these men and many others spent much of their lives with Epstein and his ‘island’. Stay tuned!!!”
- Epstein’s email: Former British prince and former ambassador appear in the archives
Despite mentions, there is no credible evidence that Clinton, Summers, or Hoffman participated in a sex trafficking scheme. All deny any involvement in the crime, but all admit to having had ties to Epstein in the past, to one degree or another.
The release of the emails by Democrats has put President Trump on the defensive. Earlier in the week, the White House even held a crisis room meeting with Republican leaders in an attempt to block a vote that would force the Justice Department to release documents. The strategy didn’t work.
If the House approves the document next week, the Senate would have to vote on a similar version, which would require President Trump to sanction it.
In fact, the opposition Democratic Party, which is currently in the minority in parliament, wants all documents related to the case made public. But for months, the FBI and Justice Department have announced that their internal investigations could not release additional material without jeopardizing key witnesses involved in the trial that convicted Epstein.
Trump’s allies say the release of the emails is part of an attempt to harm the president, while critics point out that the Republican lived with Epstein for years before breaking off their friendship in the 2000s over an episode involving a Mar-a-Lago spa employee.
President Trump, who promised major revelations about the Epstein scandal during his campaign, believes this pressure from Congressional Democrats to release the emails is part of a political campaign similar to the one that accused him of maintaining illicit ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign.
President Trump once again sought to distance himself from Epstein’s political specter, claiming on Truth Social that the billionaire is “a problem for the Democratic Party.” Epstein, a well-known figure in New York society, “was a Democrat,” the Republican wrote.
Trump said he had asked the Justice Department to investigate Summers and Hoffman, as well as Clinton, who lived with Epstein in the early 2000s. Both men were mentioned in 20,000 Epstein-related documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.
President Trump’s targets include American bank JP Morgan. In 2023, the bank paid billions of dollars to some of Epstein’s victims to settle accusations that it ignored Epstein’s sex trafficking scheme, Reuters reported. The settlement comes after embarrassing revelations that JPMorgan ignored internal warnings and overlooked red flags about Epstein, who was a customer of the bank from 1998 to 2013. On the other hand, the bank did not admit any guilt in the settlement.
- Republican discomfort: Failure of special committee to block vote for Epstein sends warning to Trump ahead of election year
Ms. Clinton flew on Mr. Epstein’s private jet several times before he was convicted in 2008, and Mr. Summers received charitable donations from Mr. Epstein while he was president of Harvard University.
Hoffman admitted that he met Epstein several times in professional settings. He had visited Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean over the weekend, according to previously released emails and diaries. Meanwhile, Hoffman claimed to have met with Epstein to raise money for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he says he regrets his interactions with Epstein.
Additionally, in the wake of last Wednesday’s Democratic revelations, a series of emails released by Republicans revealed a series of messages between Mr. Epstein and Mr. Summers that showed a confidant relationship. Messages between 2013 and early 2019 revealed that the two shared personal and sometimes inappropriate opinions about politics and relationships.
After a 2023 report by The Wall Street Journal revealed a series of emails between Mr. Epstein and Mr. Summers, a spokesperson for the former Treasury official told the newspaper that he “deeply regrets any contact with Mr. Epstein after his conviction.”
Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who now works at the law firm UB Greenfelder, said in an interview with Reuters that it would be highly inappropriate for a president to order the Justice Department to investigate individual Americans. –That’s not how it should be.
(AFP News Agency and New York Times)
About The Author
