House Democrats released emails on Wednesday in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Donald Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims and “knew about the girls.” The messages, obtained by the House Oversight Committee, were selected from thousands of pages the panel received.
What the emails say
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In an April 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” He added that an unnamed victim “spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.” Maxwell replied: “I have been thinking about that.”
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In January 2019, Epstein emailed author Michael Wolff about Mr Trump: “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
Committee staff redacted victims’ names and identifying details. The full document set has not been released, so it is unclear whether these excerpts were part of longer exchanges.
White House response
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced the disclosures and identified the victim referenced in one message as Virginia Giuffre, noting she had said she did not think Mr Trump participated in sexual abuse of minors at Epstein’s home.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”
Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, Epstein’s crimes, calling Epstein a “creep” and describing questions about the case as a partisan “hoax.”
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” said Representative Robert Garcia of California, the committee’s top Democrat.
Republicans on the committee accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation: “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click bait that is not grounded in the facts,” a spokeswoman said, arguing that Democrats were “intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
The broader context
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The three email threads date from after Epstein’s 2008 Florida plea deal on state charges, years after Mr Trump and Epstein reportedly fell out in the early 2000s.
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One thread was with Maxwell, later convicted for facilitating Epstein’s crimes. Two were with Michael Wolff.
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Epstein died by suicide in federal custody in 2019. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence.
Earlier this year, the administration released a transcript of a courthouse interview with Maxwell acknowledging Mr Trump and Epstein once had a social relationship, while denying any connection between Mr Trump and the trafficking ring.
In a 2016 deposition, Virginia Giuffre said: “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” adding she had not personally seen him at Epstein’s home.
The disclosures arrive as the House returns to end the government shutdown and renews debate over the administration’s handling of the “Epstein files” and its backtracking on a pledge of full release. Speaker Mike Johnson is set to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is expected to provide the final signature on a petition forcing a House vote on a measure demanding the release of all investigative material relating to Epstein. The White House opposes the move.
The Oversight Committee says it has received over 20,000 pages from the Epstein estate. Further releases or subpoenas could follow, keeping the political fight over what the files contain squarely in Washington’s spotlight.
Source: The New York Times