President Trump announced on Friday that he wanted the Justice Department to investigate high-profile Democrats — including former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the venture capitalist Reid Hoffman — who he alleged had ties to the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump blasted Democrats for “using the Epstein Hoax” to distract from the recent government shutdown, and said that federal law enforcement would order investigations into members of their party, who he insinuated were involved in Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking of girls.
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his “Island.” Stay tuned!!!”
The demand appeared to be a retaliatory move after Democrats released emails earlier this week that suggested Mr. Trump’s knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking operation was deeper than previously known.
On Wednesday, House Democrats released emails in which Mr. Epstein wrote that Mr. Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, and that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage.
Mr. Epstein also wrote in an email: “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” referring to his confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of conspiring in Mr. Epstein’s crimes.
In response to the Democrats’ release, Republicans also made public a tranche of emails from Epstein’s estate in which Mr. Trump was mentioned several times.
The releases reignited a firestorm around Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Epstein that has roiled his supporters, who want the government to release to the public all evidence it has on Mr. Epstein’s crimes and relationships to high-profile officials.
In his social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump said he would also investigate “J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”
The White House has maintained that Mr. Trump was not involved in Mr. Epstein’s operations, had cut off his friendship with Mr. Epstein in the mid-2000s — the two apparently had a falling out after Mr. Epstein attempted to steal a spa attendant from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club — and that the latest document releases were an attempt to smear him.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Wednesday.
“And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.”
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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