President Donald Trump “knew about the girls” allegedly trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, according to emails released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. The emails — from Epstein to his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell and the author Michael Wolff — suggested Trump was aware of the late financier’s conduct for years.
In one email, Epstein characterized Trump to Maxwell in 2011 as “that dog that hasn’t barked” and said a victim spent hours at his house with Trump.
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The emails’ release came as the House prepares to confront an effort to force the release of all government files on Epstein. When the House convenes Wednesday after a long recess during the government shutdown, Speaker Mike Johnson is slated to swear in Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., who will give Democrats and a handful of Republicans enough votes to force the release of the files.
“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,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif, said in a news release.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated Trump’s claim he kicked Epstein out of his Mar-A-Lago club several decades ago for “being a creep to his female employees,” The New York Times reported. She dismissed the emails as “bad-faith” efforts to distract people from Trump’s accomplishments.
“Any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again,” the NYT reported Leavitt saying.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of selectively choosing from a large cache of Epstein documents to embarrass Trump.
“Democrats continue to cherry-pick documents to generate clickbait that is not grounded in the facts,” a committee spokeswoman said, according to The New York Times. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents … yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
Republicans release 23,000 files
Hours after the Democrats’ disclosure, the Republican majority on the committee released about 23,000 documents Wednesday from Epstein’s estate. The files included scanned images about Epstein’s legal troubles, his financial purchases and a redacted address book.
The files originated from the committee’s August subpoena, according to The New York Times, and contain emails Democrats released earlier. Those documents detailed Wolff moonlighting as Epstein’s adviser during Trump’s rise in politics. One email that Wolff wrote suggested Epstein come out against Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign to garner sympathy as the financier faced mounting allegations for child sexual abuse.
Wolff wrote in March 2016 that Epstein would gain a political cover if he took a stance against Trump and reframed his story. But the next October, Wolff allegedly sent an email to Epstein with the subject, “Now could be the time.”
“There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested?” Wolff wrote.
Epstein talks Trump’s presidency with Wolff
The Oversight Committee’s Democrats redacted several names, email addresses and other facts from the emails released Wednesday.
Republican committee members said those whose name was removed included Virginia Giuffre, The Times reported. She has said that Maxwell — now serving a 20-year sentence for her role in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking scheme — recruited her while she worked as a teenager at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Florida. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
The Republicans said Epstein was referring to Giuffre in a 2011 email in which he said an unnamed victim “spent hours at my house” with Trump, yet “he has never once been mentioned.”
The Times reported that Giuffre testified in a 2016 deposition that she “never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate” in illicit actions with underage girls.
In an email from January 2019, Epstein told Wolff that Trump had asked him to leave Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. Epstein also said Trump was aware of young women — some of whom were underage — he had asked Maxwell to procure.
“Trump said he asked me to resign,” Epstein wrote on Jan. 31, 2019. “Never a member ever … of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
Epstein died by suicide in custody in August of that year.
In emails from 2015, Epstein and Wolff also weighed the possibility of Trump becoming president and what would happen if CNN questioned Trump about his relationship to Epstein. Epstein had been convicted in 2008 of soliciting a prostitute and procuring a child for prostitution.
Wolff advised Epstein to let Trump speak for himself and if he claimed to not be on Epstein’s plane or his home, to use it as valuable publicity and political power.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you,” a redacted email shows that Wolff wrote, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
