Jeffrey Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls” in 2019 email to author Michael Wolff, House Democrats allege
Washington- Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released emails exchanged between Jeffrey Epstein and others about President Trump.
Among the documents is a 2011 message from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell, his longtime associate, who said Mr. Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims, whose name is redacted. In another 2019 email to author Michael Wolff, Epstein wrote: “Of course he knew about the girls when he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
Maxwell was convicted of conspiracy in Epstein’s sex trafficking ring and serves A 20 year prison sentence. Wolff has written several books about Mr. Trump.
House Democrats said the emails were turned over by Epstein’s estate, which they say has released more than 23,000 documents that lawmakers are reviewing. The full Oversight Committee also released more than 20,000 pages of documents about the Epstein estate on Wednesday and claimed that Democrats “cherry-picked” the material “to generate clickbait.” The latest batch includes emails, court proceedings records, deposition transcripts, newspaper clippings and other documents.
Mr. Trump has previously said he severed ties with Epstein years ago, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of selectively releasing emails to “create a false narrative” aimed at harming Mr Trump. She said the anonymous victim in the emails was the late Virginia Giuffre, who met Epstein in the summer of 2000, just before she turned 17. while working at the spa at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in South Florida. Giuffre, who death by suicide in April, did not accuse the president of any wrongdoing.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago because he was a bad guy to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said in a statement. “These stories are nothing more than bad faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees through this hoax and clear distraction from reopening government.”
CBS has not independently verified the emails.
In one of Epstein’s messages to Maxwell, dated April 2, 2011, the late financier wrote: “I want you to realize that this dog that didn’t bark is Trump. [Victim 1] I spent hours at home with him, he was never mentioned.
Maxwell then replies: “I thought about it…”
In a second email that appears to be from Epstein to Wolff, dated January 31, 2019, Epstein refers to a victim, whose name is redacted, and mentions Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort in South Florida.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member. Of course he knew about the girls when he asked Ghislaine to stop,” Epstein’s message read.
In the third exchange released by House Democrats, which appears to take place between Epstein and Wolff, Wolff wrote on December 15, 2015: “I have heard that CNN plans to ask Trump this evening about his relationship with you, either on-air or in scrimmages afterward.” »
According to the email exchange, Epstein then responds: “If we were able to offer him an answer, what do you think it should be?” Wolff responds, “I think you should let him hang himself.” If he says he didn’t go on the plane or home, then that gives you valuable political and PR currency. accuracy, which must be prohibited in a Trump regime. »
Mr Trump announced his first bid for the White House in June 2015 and was reportedly on the campaign trail at the time the emails between Wolff and Epstein were exchanged.
Wolff is the author of a book about the early months of Mr. Trump’s first term, titled “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” published in 2018.
Mr. Trump and Epstein had been friends for years and hung out in the same social circles in New York and Florida from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. But the president said they had fallen out around 2004, more than a decade before Epstein was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Epstein had separately reached a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2007, in which he agreed to plead guilty of two state prostitution charges and serve an 18-month prison sentence.
Epstein death by suicide in a Manhattan correctional facility while awaiting trial.
The new publication comes as part of a campaign for more transparency on the Epstein files in Congress. The House is expected to return on Wednesday for the first time since September 19. The Lower House has been absent from Washington while the Senate worked through an impasse over reopening the government. The absence of the House meant that the new member, the Democrat Adelita Grijalvawas not sworn in, preventing him from becoming the final signature needed on a discharge petition aimed at bypassing House GOP leaders and forcing a vote on a measure to force the Justice Department to release all records from its investigation of Epstein. Grijalva is expected to sign the petition after being sworn in on Wednesday, which will begin the process of moving the bill forward. The vote probably won’t happen until next month.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, urged the Justice Department in a statement Wednesday to make Epstein’s records public “immediately,” promising that the panel “will continue to press for answers and will not stop until we achieve justice for the victims.”
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” Garcia said. “These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president.”
Several slices of files have been returned to congressional investigators, including those from the Epstein estate. The House Oversight Committee also information sought many former attorneys general and FBI directors, as well as former President Bill Clinton.
Lawmakers also questioned Alex Acosta, who was the U.S. attorney in South Florida when prosecutors investigated Epstein in the 2000s and reached a non-prosecution agreement with him.
Acosta then served as labor secretary during Mr. Trump’s first term, but resigned in 2019 amid questions about his handling of the Epstein case.
