Erica L. Green, Glenn Thrush, and Alan Feuer at NYT:
When a trove of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails were made public this week, Donald J. Trump’s name was all over them. But on Friday, when Mr. Trump demanded that the Justice Department investigate a list of powerful men mentioned in the emails, his own name was nowhere to be seen — he had singled out only Democrats.
Equally remarkable was how quickly Attorney General Pam Bondi acquiesced to his demand, even though four months ago the Justice Department formally declared that nothing in the Epstein files warranted further investigation.
That about-face, as much as any action Ms. Bondi has taken this year, demonstrated the near-complete breakdown of the Justice Department’s traditional independence to prosecute cases based on facts and the law, as opposed to presidential fiat. And, crucially, it could foreclose any further disclosures of the Epstein files.
...
Ms. Bondi’s decision to press forward with the investigation is a complete turnaround from a memo issued by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. in July, which said that officials had thoroughly scrutinized the Epstein files and had found nothing in them that could sustain opening further inquiries into anyone else.
Still, if an investigation into any one of the targets suggested by Mr. Trump were to ultimately start, it could allow the Justice Department to refuse to release any further files related to Mr. Epstein by claiming that the disclosures could harm continuing inquiries.
In his social media post connecting Democrats with Mr. Epstein, Mr. Trump named Mr. Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and the venture capitalist and megadonor Reid Hoffman
President Trump just attacked me and lied about me. I haven’t called him at all, but I did send these text messages today. Apparently this is what sent him over the edge.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) November 15, 2025
The Epstein files.
And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other… pic.twitter.com/EcUzaohZZs
Trump calls Marjorie Taylor Greene “Marjorie Traitor Green” on Truth Social. Is Speaker Johnson ok with this? pic.twitter.com/2S2PNz8F20
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 15, 2025
