(Washington) Donald Trump counterattacked Friday by calling for an investigation into the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and certain Democratic figures including Bill Clinton, at a time when his own links with the sex offender who died in prison are the subject of new questions.
He also broke resoundingly with an emblematic figure of his MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who accuses him of lacking transparency in this political-judicial scandal.
Through the investigation that he asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Police (FBI) to open, the American president is also targeting Larry Summers, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, the investor and entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, the JPMorgan Chase bank as well as “many other people and institutions”.
“The records show that these men, and many others, spent a lot of time with Epstein,” he said, without providing evidence.
PHOTO SAUL LOEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
US President Donald Trump
Justice Secretary Pam Bondi promised on X that her services would act “diligently and honestly to provide answers to the American people.”
In July, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced that they had “not discovered evidence on which to base an investigation against people not yet prosecuted” in the Epstein affair.
The two institutions also judged that it would be “not relevant” to make the “Epstein file” public.
This position arouses the incomprehension, even anger, of many supporters of Donald Trump’s “MAGA” movement, including Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The Republican president called her “crazy” on his Truth Social network on Friday. The elected official from Georgia criticized the American president for wanting to make an “example” to intimidate all conservatives.
Donald Trump promised shattering revelations during his campaign.
But once returned to power, the former real estate developer, who frequented Jeffrey Epstein when they were figures of the New York jet set before falling out with him, tried to close the file, according to him a “trick” set up by the Democrats.
The House of Representatives is due to consider a bill next week that would force the Justice Department to release the “Epstein files”, and the American press expects that many Republicans will vote in favor.
“We implore you to do this,” wrote victims of Jeffrey Epstein in a letter addressed to the US Congress and obtained by AFP on Friday.
“Backlash”
The Epstein affair was relaunched this week by the publication of emails from the New York financier, with a particularly full address book.
PHOTO ARCHIVES REUTERS
Jeffrey Epstein was a figure in New York social life.
Donald Trump “knew about the girls” who were sexually assaulted and even “spent several hours” with one of them, say emails from Jeffrey Epstein, revealed by Democratic parliamentarians.
But the American president assured Friday, while he went to Florida: “I know nothing about that. (Otherwise) it would have been said a long time ago. »
“Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years,” he added.
“These emails prove that Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is just noise, intended to distract attention from the (Republican) electoral defeats and the backlash caused by the budgetary paralysis,” responded Angel Urena, spokesperson for the former president.
Bill Clinton dated the New York financier in the 1990s and 2000s.
Contacted by AFP, the office of Larry Summers, who was economic advisor to Barack Obama and president of the prestigious Harvard University, did not immediately respond.
Accused of having facilitated the actions of Jeffrey Epstein by allowing him to finance his activities, the JPMorgan Chase bank agreed to pay $290 million to alleged victims, under an agreement announced in June 2023.
“We regret our dealings with this man but did not assist him in his heinous actions,” a JPMorgan Chase spokesperson said.
With his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell as a tout, Epstein brought minors to his residences, particularly in New York and Florida, to sexually assault them under the pretext of massages.
He died in prison in 2019 before his trial, by suicide according to authorities. Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sexual exploitation.
