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US President Donald Trump has directed the Justice Department to provide more information about the late disgraced sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval,” Trump said in a social media post late Thursday.

Following Trump’s announcement on social media, US Attorney General Pam Bondi responded saying, “We are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”

Though a court’s consent is normally required for such an action, it is unclear whether Trump is authorising the public publication of these records or when that would occur.

The controversy over Trump’s handling of records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation entered a new dimension Thursday as his administration struggles to make good on its promises to release details on the sex trafficking case involving a one-time friend of the now-president.

Trump promised a lawsuit after The Wall Street Journal described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump’s name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein’s 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, calling it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

The latest developments come after Trump in recent days berated as “weaklings” supporters vying for more records from the Epstein probe, after years of courting political support from those who have stoked claims of a coverup in the case to protect wealthy friends of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking of underage girls.

Trump has tried to downplay Epstein case

As his supporters erupted over the Justice Department’s failure to release much-hyped records in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation, President Donald Trump’s strategy has been to downplay the issue.

“I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

Last week, the Justice Department and the FBI abruptly walked back the notion that there’s an Epstein client list of elites who participated in the wealthy New York financier’s trafficking of underage girls. Trump quickly defended Attorney General Pam Bondi and chided a reporter for daring to ask about the documents.

Asked about the possible appointment of a special prosecutor for a full probe into the federal sex trafficking case of late financier Jeffrey Epstein, the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump does not support such a move.

“The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case, she said.

Prosecutor who worked on Epstein probe

Meanwhile, news emerged that the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI director James Comey and a federal prosecutor who worked on the cases against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jeffrey Epstein.

In a note to colleagues on Thursday, Comey wrote, “Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”

Maurene’s father, James Comey, was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama and serving previously as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s administration.

But his relationship with Trump was strained from the start, and the FBI director resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

No specific reason has been given for her firing, but the political crisis triggered by the Jeffrey Epstein case has been challenging for Trump in what analysts believe to be his own making.

For years, Trump has promoted conspiracy theories and QAnon-influenced propaganda, portraying himself as the sole saviour capable of overthrowing the “deep state.”