House Democrats on Wednesday released a series of emails that they said raise fresh questions about President Donald Trump’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and what he may have known about Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. The move came as the swearing-in of a new Democrat in Congress reignited partisan tensions over demands for further disclosures.
The emails, exchanged between Epstein, author Michael Wolff, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in Epstein’s sex trafficking network include one 2019 message in which Epstein wrote to Wolff claiming that Trump “knew about the girls.” The meaning of that phrase remains unclear.
In another 2019 email, Epstein said that Trump “came to my house many times” but “never got a massage.” That message was among a larger collection of documents later made public on Wednesday by a Republican-led congressional committee.
Trump denied
Trump has vehemently and consistently denied knowing about Epstein‘s sex trafficking. He has said that he and Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, were once friends before having a falling out.
The Epstein case has dogged Trump for months, upsetting even his own political supporters, who believe the government has been covering up Epstein‘s ties to the rich and powerful and who have been unusually critical of his Justice Department for not releasing more information about the Epstein case.
Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of releasing the emails to distract from the record 43-day shutdown of the government.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday afternoon.
The disclosures came on the day that Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva was sworn in by House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, providing a majority to force a House vote to release all unclassified records related to Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.
“It’s past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration,” Grijalva said.
Johnson’s office said the House would hold that vote next week.
The batch of emails released earlier on Wednesday includes a 2011 message to Maxwell in which Epstein described Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked,” adding that Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of his victims, whose name is redacted.
Later in the day, Republicans released a cache of 20,000 Epstein-related documents in which Trump’s name surfaces frequently, though typically in the context of his political career or allegations of sexual behavior. In one exchange, Epstein refers to a 20-year-old girlfriend whom he “gave to Donald” in 1993, and talks about photos of “Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” though it is not clear whether he is joking.
Trump did nothing wrong, White House says
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of redacting the victim’s name in the released emails because the victim was Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had called Trump friendly without accusing him of any wrongdoing in her posthumous memoir.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” Leavitt said on Wednesday.
Just four in 10 Republicans told an October Reuters/Ipsos poll that they approved of Trump’s handling of the Epstein files — well below the nine in 10 who approve of his overall performance in the White House.
Trump and other administration officials have reached out to Republican Representatives Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to try to get them to remove their names from the petition that would force a vote on releasing all of the files, according to reporting by Axios and other media outlets.
Boebert told reporters there was “no pressure” when she met with White House officials to discuss the matter on Wednesday, adding that she remained a supporter of the petition.
Mace, who has spoken publicly about her experience as a sexual assault survivor, is not removing her name from the petition “because of her personal story,” spokesperson Sydney Long said.
(With Reuters Inputs)
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Sofia Babu Chacko is a journalist with over five years of experience covering Indian politics, crime, human rights, gender issues, and stories about marginalized communities. She believes that every voice matters, and journalism has a vital role to play in amplifying those voices. Sofia is committed to creating impact and shedding light on stories that truly matter. Beyond her work in the newsroom, she is also a music enthusiast who enjoys singing.
