President Donald Trump announced on Thursday night that he was authorising attorney general Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Bondi said she would make that request in federal court on Friday.

Trump, under intense pressure from his Right-wing base after a justice department review found no evidence to support conspiracy theories about the sex trafficking case, ordered Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval”, in a social media post.

The President cited “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein” for his directive, which falls far short of demands from some congressional Republicans to make public all investigative files collected by the department and the FBI, not just testimony presented in court.

Bondi, a Trump loyalist accused by far-Right influencers of abetting a cover-up, responded immediately with a post on social media that undercut the memo the department and FBI drafted this month declaring Epstein’s 2019 jailhouse death a suicide and the case closed.

“President Trump — we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts,” she wrote, quickly reversing course at his command.

Trump’s request came hours after The Wall Street Journal reported on a 50th birthday greeting it said Trump sent Epstein in 2003, including a sexually suggestive drawing, an expression of friendship and a reference to secrets they shared.

The President vehemently denied the report, which The New York Times has not verified.

He warned Rupert Murdoch, the founder of News Corp., the paper’s parent company, that he planned to sue.

Trump denied the report, which The New York Times has not verified. He warned Rupert Murdoch that he planned to sue.

New York Times News Service