Trump Tells DOJ to Release Epstein Files, Calls Case a ‘Democrat Hoax’

President Donald Trump said Friday that he has directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department to provide the House Oversight Committee with all records related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, softening a stance that had previously resisted the files’ release. Answering questions in the Oval Office after an event with FIFA officials, Trump insisted that “innocent people shouldn’t be hurt” by the disclosure but nonetheless told aides to “give them everything you can give them, because it’s a Democrat hoax.” He argued that many of the individuals named in the documents merely knew Epstein through social circles in Palm Beach. Trump singled out former President Bill Clinton—whom he claimed flew on Epstein’s jet to the financier’s private island “supposedly 28 times”—and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, while adding that he did not want to “hurt” either man. The president maintained that renewed focus on the files is designed to distract from what he has called his administration’s historic economic and foreign-policy achievements. The Justice Department began transmitting portions of the so-called Epstein files to the Republican-led Oversight panel earlier in the day. Prosecutors have said the trove contains references to more than 1,000 potential victims and witnesses dating back to Epstein’s first investigation in 2006, though it is unclear when—or if—the committee will make the material public. Democrats on the panel welcomed Trump’s pledge of cooperation but dismissed his claim that the controversy is a partisan fabrication. Republicans did not immediately comment on plans for additional hearings or publication of the documents.