Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives released on Wednesday afternoon quotes from a new batch of emails written at the time by the pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, in which he mentions President Donald Trump not only as someone who “knew about the girls”—referring to the minors Epstein trafficked for sex—but also as someone who “spent hours” with one of them at his home. The Democrats are attempting to present the documents as contradicting Trump’s claim that he was unaware of Epstein’s actions, portraying him instead as closely tied to them and raising the question of what else he may be hiding.
Epstein was a Jewish-American tycoon and once a close friend of Trump in the 1990s and early 2000s, until a falling-out between them around 2004. It later emerged that, for years, Epstein and his former partner Ghislaine Maxwell trafficked underage girls for sex, involving celebrities from the U.S. and around the world. Epstein was arrested at the end of the last decade, but while awaiting trial was found hanged in his New York prison cell, and his death was ruled a suicide. Maxwell was later sentenced to 20 years in prison for her role in the sexual exploitation.
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What else was Jeffrey Epstein holding over Donald Trump's head
(Photos: Jacquelyn Martin/AP, New York State Sex Offender Registry/AP)
Epstein’s suicide triggered a flood of conspiracy theories, including ones suggesting he had actually been murdered to prevent him from revealing the involvement of prominent individuals from his social circle who were allegedly part of his crimes—including Trump, former President Bill Clinton, and Britain’s Prince Andrew. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump vowed that if he returned to the White House he would expose shocking details about the Epstein case and what had been hidden. But in recent months, he appears to have distanced himself from the subject. Trump claims the renewed focus on the case is a “scam” by political rivals aimed at embarrassing him over his past ties to Epstein, ties he says he severed years before Epstein’s first sex crime conviction.
In July, the New York Times reported that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had informed Trump that his name appears in the “Epstein files”—a trove of emails and other documents related to the case held by authorities. This afternoon, the Democrats announced they were releasing 23,000 new documents from those files to the public. The documents are currently being reviewed by the House Oversight Committee.
According to reports in the U.S., one of the newly revealed private correspondences is an email from 2011 between Epstein and his former partner Maxwell, in which Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of his victims. In that email, Epstein described Trump as “a dog that didn’t bark.” In another exchange from 2019—the year Epstein died—between Epstein and journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls because he asked Ghislaine to stop.” In another email exchange, Epstein and Wolff discussed whether they could “craft a response” to a CNN interview Trump was about to give, and in it Wolff explained what kind of leverage Epstein had over Trump.
Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, claimed Wednesday that the newly revealed correspondences raise “urgent questions” about the nature of the relationship between Trump and Epstein, and about what the White House may still be hiding. Garcia called on the Department of Justice to release the full Epstein files.
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Illustration of a nude woman that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein more than 20 years ago
(Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)
Trump has consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s illegal activities or any involvement in them since the case exploded in 2019. When his administration earlier this year announced it would reopen the case, many of his supporters expected bombshell revelations—especially after Attorney General Bondi claimed that Epstein’s “client list,” i.e., a list of other as-yet-unnamed figures involved in the case, was on her desk and under review. They were stunned when, in July, she suddenly announced that no such list exists.
In September, in an earlier attempt to embarrass Trump, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released an illustration of a nude woman that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein more than 20 years ago as part of a birthday album Epstein received. The card allegedly included a note from Trump wishing Epstein that “every day be a new wonderful secret.” Trump’s signature appeared at the bottom of the card, though he has strongly denied that he was the one who sent it.