Bondi picks lawyer to lead investigation into Epstein ties to Trump’s rivals: live

President Donald Trump is engaging in a “huge miscalculation” by dismissing the bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing the government to release more of the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the latest reminder of her growing status as a Trump critic inside the GOP.

“Just being very honest with you, it’s something that I don’t understand,” the MAGA rep said, arguing that releasing more Epstein information sends a powerful message that the government “will not protect the predators,” even if they are tied to rich and influential people.

When asked about Greene’s comments, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “Democrats and the mainstream media are desperately trying to use this hoax as a distraction to talk about anything other than Democrats getting utterly defeated by President Trump in the shutdown fight.”

President Donald Trump announced that he planned to ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate prominent Democrats with ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

“Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures, I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” he wrote on Truth Social Friday morning.

Later in the day, the attorney general posted on social media that she assigned a prosecutor to lead the probe.

“Thank you, Mr. President. SDNY U.S. 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,” Bondi wrote.

Jeffrey Epstein’s book purchases paint him as an eclectic reader, with topics ranging from the Catholic church to cryptocurrency, from philosophy to pilates, from espionage to immortality.

He acquired multiple works by American filmmaker Woody Allen, German psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer and Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov — whose book “Lolita” was infamously used to nickname Epstein’s private jet.

The convicted sex offender’s reading list was assembled by Bloomberg, using Amazon receipts delivered to his Yahoo email. The outlet obtained a trove of over 18,000 emails from the account earlier this year.

Brendan Rascius has the story.

Jeffrey Epstein sent Donald Trump a “truck of baby food” after losing a $10,000 bet, according to the newly released emails.

In a July 2016 email, Jeffrey Epstein told author and guru Deepak Chopra about the time he sent Donald Trump a “truck of baby food” when Marla Maples was pregnant.

Trump and Maples were married from 1993 to 1999.

The email reads: “in fact when she told donald she was pregnant. I lost a 10k dollar bet with him, and sent him a truck of baby food. in payment. but i have not spoken to her in many years since then.”

California Rep. Kevin Kiley told CNN he planned to vote in support of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

This week, the discharge petition reached the necessary 218 signatures to force a vote on the act.

Kiley joins a growing number of Republicans who have said they would vote in favor of it, including Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon and Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson.

The letter — signed by more than two dozen Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell abuse survivors, relatives of Virginia Giuffre, and several Donald Trump accusers — urged members of Congress to vote in favor of releasing the Epstein Files.

“You have the ability to vote to release the Epstein files, and with it, deliver a promise the American people have awaited for far too long. We implore you to do so,” the group wrote.

The House Oversight Committee made public tens of thousands of documents this week from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate.

Among them were 2,324 email threads. Donald Trump was named in 1,670 — well over half of them, according to an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.

Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing. He did not send or receive any of the emails.

His name was often shared in the context of current events and news article around the 2016 election and his first term, the paper found.

The analysis included other figures, such as Bill Clinton who was named in 512 of the email threads as well as author Michael Wolff, who regularly emailed Epstein as he was writing a book on Trump, appeared in 207 threads.

Neither Clinton nor Wolff have been accused of wrongdoing.

Jeffrey Epstein has garnered international attention for his crimes and alleged connection to powerful people while abusing girls for years.

The disgraced financier died by suicide in a New York prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges. His case continues to be in the public eye for his alleged ties to the famous – and names that are found in his alleged contact book.

Those names include Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson and former Prince Andrew.

While those named in the book have not been accused of any wrongdoing, it hasn’t stopped conspiracy theorists and the public from speculating on a connection.