President Trump has directed the Department of Justice to examine the roles of several prominent Democratic figures and donors who had social or professional ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in federal custody in 2019. The directive, delivered to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday, instructs the department to review the activities and associations of former President Bill Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, billionaire Reid Hoffman, and several institutions connected publicly to Epstein.
Trump’s order comes as renewed public attention focuses on his own long-standing social connection to Epstein, which began in the 1990s and continued into the mid-2000s. The administration has been criticized for declining to release federal files related to Epstein, a decision that spurred a House Oversight Committee investigation and a separate bipartisan congressional effort to compel the documents’ disclosure. Federal officials have previously stated, in broad terms, that their internal review found no grounds to pursue charges against unnamed third parties.
The individuals newly targeted for investigation have appeared in various records from Epstein’s social and professional circles. Clinton was known to have associated with Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell during and after his presidency. Visitor logs show Epstein made multiple trips to the White House in the 1990s, and flight records indicate Clinton traveled on Epstein’s private plane multiple times prior to the end of their friendship in the early 2000s. Clinton has not faced credible allegations of criminal conduct related to these interactions.
Summers maintained a long friendship with Epstein as well. Their communications were among the 20,000 documents released this week by the House Oversight Committee as part of its ongoing inquiry. The files show regular correspondence on personal matters and political developments during Trump’s first term. Both Trump and Clinton appear repeatedly in the same document cache, reflecting Epstein’s extensive political and social network.
Hoffman, a major Democratic donor and co-founder of LinkedIn, has previously acknowledged assisting the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s media lab in securing donations from Epstein and has expressed regret for interacting with Epstein after the latter’s 2008 sex-crime conviction in Florida. Hoffman has also confirmed visiting Epstein’s private island during that period.
Attorney General Bondi has said the Justice Department will move forward with the new review and has asked SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to take the lead. She emphasized that the department intends to pursue the matter quickly and with procedural rigor.
The administration’s approach to the Epstein files has remained a point of contention in Congress. Epstein’s victims have supported the House discharge petition requiring the DOJ to make the full set of documents public. With Representative Adelita Grijalva’s swearing-in this week, the petition gained the necessary signatures to advance to a vote.
Among the documents newly highlighted by House Democrats are several emails suggesting Epstein claimed Trump had knowledge of his misconduct. One email also referenced Trump spending time at an Epstein residence with an individual whose name was initially redacted. The person was later identified as Virginia Giuffre, a well-known Epstein accuser who had previously stated Trump did not engage in improper behavior. Giuffre died earlier this year.
Trump has denied the authenticity of certain documents released in the investigation, including a letter attributed to him from 2003, and he has filed suit against a media outlet that reported on it. He continues to characterize the broader focus on his Epstein ties as politically driven. To date, he has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
