President Trump sought to redirect attention from his own ties to Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, urging the public and media to instead scrutinize prominent Democrats connected to the late sex offender.
“They should focus on the fact that Larry Summers from Harvard, that Bill Clinton, who you know very well, and lots of other friends, really close friends of [Epstein], should be spoken about. … And they should speak about them because they don’t speak about them, they talk about me. I had nothing to do with the guy,” Trump said ahead of departing for Scotland.
“But you ought to be speaking about Larry Summers and some of his friends,” Trump continued, adding that he never went to Epstein’s tropical island, where reports have alleged that wealthy individuals had sex with underage girls.
Summers, who previously served as president of Harvard and held prominent roles in Democratic administrations—including Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council in the Obama White House—was among the high-profile figures linked to Epstein in documents released in 2023.
Those documents, including Epstein’s emails and schedules, revealed that numerous well-known individuals continued meeting with Epstein even after he was a registered sex offender. While the records show that Summers met with Epstein more than a dozen times between 2013 and 2016, well after Harvard stopped accepting Epstein’s donations following his 2008 conviction, they do not contain any evidence that Summers engaged in wrongdoing.
At the time, Summers said he “deeply regrets being in contact with Epstein after his conviction” and that the meetings were to solicit money for a non-profit run by his wife.
Eliza New, Summers’ wife and a former Harvard literature professor, launched a project in 2016 focused on creating poetry education videos. That year, a nonprofit linked to Epstein contributed $110,000 to support her initiative, the Washington Times reported.
Flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, known as the “Lolita Express,” show that Summers flew on the plane at least four times: once in 1998 while serving as deputy treasury secretary, and at least three more times during his tenure as Harvard’s president.
Former President Clinton’s ties to Epstein are also well documented, with multiple photos showing the two together.
Clinton was named in court filings released last year as part of the case against Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime companion, who is now serving a prison sentence for assisting in his abuse of underage girls. But there are no reports or direct evidence implicating Clinton in any wrongdoing, the Times emphasized.
According to the documents, a woman who accused Prince Andrew of groping her while she was underage also alleged that Epstein once told her that Clinton “likes them young,” referring to girls.
The files also include testimony from Maxwell, who confirmed that Clinton flew on Epstein’s private jet, though she said she did not know how many times.
In a 2019 statement, Clinton said his trips on Epstein’s plane were limited to humanitarian missions to Africa in the early 2000s, during a period when he publicly praised Epstein as a philanthropist. Clinton later severed ties with him.
Clinton has maintained that he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes and has emphasized that his Secret Service detail accompanied him on every leg of those trips, the Times reported.
Maxwell sat for roughly nine hours of questioning with the Justice Department over two days this week after being granted limited immunity, according to those familiar with the matter.
Sources told ABC News that Maxwell initiated the contact and meetings with the Trump DOJ. The immunity agreement allowed Maxwell to respond to questions from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche without the risk that her statements could be used against her later, the sources told the outlet.
The type of arrangement—known as proffer immunity—is often extended to individuals prosecutors are considering as potential cooperators in ongoing criminal investigations.