When a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails were made public this week, Donald J. Trump’s name was all over them. But on Friday, when Mr. Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate a list of powerful men mentioned in the emails, his own name was nowhere to be seen — he had singled out only Democrats.
Equally remarkable was how quickly Attorney General Pam Bondi acquiesced to his demand, even though four months ago the Justice Department formally declared that nothing in the Epstein files warranted further investigation.
That about-face, as much as any action Ms. Bondi has taken this year, demonstrated the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat. And, crucially, it could foreclose any further disclosures of the Epstein files.
“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday. “Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!”
Less than four hours later, Ms. Bondi said she had chosen Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, to handle the matter.
“Thank you,” she wrote to Mr. Trump in a post on X. “Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead. As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.”
Mr. Trump’s response to this week’s Epstein revelations was the reprise of a deflective tactic he has often deployed in instances of crisis: When the spotlight begins to burn, Mr. Trump deflects, points fingers or changes the conversation. He even tries to pull his adversaries, often one of the Clintons, into the scene with him — then he exits stage right.
That was his approach in the fall of 2016, when the “Access Hollywood” tape threatened to sink his campaign. Then — and now — Mr. Trump’s main target was former President Bill Clinton, whom he claimed had done far worse.
The latest demand by Mr. Trump came after congressional Democrats released emails earlier this week that suggested the president’s knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation was deeper than previously known.
Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
On Friday, Mr. Trump reiterated his baseless claims about the Democrats he targeted for investigation, and downplayed the revelations about Mr. Epstein’s frequent mentions of their relationship.
On a flight to West Palm Beach, Fla., he told reporters that he and Mr. Epstein “had a very bad relationship for many years.”
Instead of focusing on Mr. Epstein’s own recollections, Mr. Trump said, “you’ve got to find out what did he know with respect to Bill Clinton, with respect to the head of Harvard.”
Ms. Bondi’s decision to press forward with the investigation is a complete turnaround from a memo issued by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. in July, which said that officials had thoroughly scrutinized the Epstein files and had found nothing in them that could sustain opening further inquiries into anyone else.
Still, if an investigation into any one of the targets suggested by Mr. Trump were to ultimately start, it could allow the Justice Department to refuse to release any further files related to Mr. Epstein by claiming that the disclosures could harm continuing inquiries.
In his social media post connecting Democrats with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Trump named Mr. Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the venture capitalist and megadonor Reid Hoffman.
The newly released emails “prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing,” said Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton. “The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns and who knows what else.”
On X, Mr. Hoffman called on Mr. Trump to release all the Epstein files. “I want this complete release because it will show that the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander,” he said, adding that he also wanted justice for Mr. Epstein’s victims.
A representative for Mr. Summers declined to comment.
Mr. Trump also said he wanted law enforcement officials to investigate “J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions.” A recent investigation by The New York Times found that the bank had spent years supporting — and profiting from — Mr. Epstein, ignoring a series of red flags about his conduct.
Mr. Hoffman has apologized for his interactions with Mr. Epstein, saying that he “helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice” and that he was “deeply regretful.” Mr. Clinton has denied having a close relationship with Mr. Epstein, and in 2019, his office released a statement saying that Mr. Clinton knew “nothing about the terrible crimes” that Mr. Epstein had been accused of. The statement also said he had never been to Mr. Epstein’s island, and that he had not spoken to him in more than a decade.
Mr. Summers, who served as Treasury secretary under Mr. Clinton, and who was revealed to have frequently bantered with Mr. Epstein, referred to previous statements in which he acknowledged “regretting my past associations with Mr. Epstein.” (Mr. Summers, who also served as the president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006, is a contributing writer for The Times’s Opinion section).
Ms. Bondi’s decision to assign an investigation to the Southern District of New York could create significant conflict within an office known for its investigative might and independence.
The office’s leadership flatly refused strong-arm pressure from the Justice Department to sign off on withdrawal of the bribery indictment of Mayor Eric Adams of New York City earlier this year, leading to a wave of resignations and forcing a top aide to Ms. Bondi to appear on behalf of the government to make the request in court himself.
Mr. Clayton, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission who spent nearly two decades at the white shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, enjoys a reputation in New York legal circles as a widely respected lawyer.
Still, like other Trump appointees, he has been known to flatter the president at times. Last month, for instance, in an appearance on CNBC that rankled many of his subordinates in the Southern District, he accused many prominent lawyers of having “stayed silent” when Mr. Trump was charged in four separate criminal cases.
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.
Also on Wednesday, Republicans made public a tranche of emails from Mr. Epstein’s estate in which Mr. Trump was mentioned several times.
In another email released this week, Mr. Epstein wrote “Clinton was NEVER EVER there, never,” referring to his private island that Mr. Trump mentioned.
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.
The White House has said that Mr. Trump was not involved in Mr. Epstein’s operations and that he had cut off his friendship with Mr. Epstein in the mid-2000s — the two apparently had a falling out after Mr. Epstein tried to steal a spa attendant from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. The latest document releases were an attempt to smear the president, the White House said.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday.
Democrats accused Mr. Trump of trying to shift the focus away from himself.
Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, accused Mr. Trump in a statement of trying to distract. “Our Oversight investigation has Donald Trump panicked and desperate,” he said. “He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.”
Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, who will retire at the end of his term, criticized Mr. Trump for undermining the independence of the Justice Department. “When the president gives orders to Pam Bondi and our law enforcement arms of the federal government, it undercuts the credibility of our law enforcement,” he said in an interview on CNN. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for him to do it.”
Michael Gold and Theodore Schleifer contributed reporting.
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
The post Justice Department to Investigate Epstein Ties, but Not to Trump appeared first on New York Times.
