WASHINGTON — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three newly-obtained emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that mention President Donald Trump, adding to a growing cache of material the minority has been publishing this fall. The redacted messages were posted to DocumentCloud on Wednesday.
What the emails say
2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein refers to Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked,” and writes that an alleged victim “spent hours at my house with him.” (email text as released, redactions remain).
2015 exchange with author Michael Wolff: Wolff tells Epstein that CNN was planning to ask Trump about their relationship and suggests letting Trump “hang himself” if he denies visiting Epstein’s home or plane.
2019 email to Wolff: Epstein writes, “of course [Trump] knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” without further explanation.
The New York Times reports on the supposed messages from Epstein suggesting that Trump had some awareness of his sexual abuse and human trafficking:
Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. He has said that he and Mr. Epstein, the disgraced financier who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019, were once friendly but had a falling out.
But Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The messages are certain to inflame the debate on Capitol Hill over the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files, and top officials’ decision to backtrack on a promise to fully release them. That issue, which has split Republicans and alienated some of Mr. Trump’s right-wing supporters, had faded to the background as the government shutdown dragged on.
The committee described the messages as part of more than 23,000 additional records under review from the Epstein estate. Major news outlets noted they had not independently verified the emails beyond the committee’s public release.
The emails provide fresh, if limited, written references tying Trump to Epstein across multiple years. They are likely to fuel the partisan fight over how much of the Epstein record should be public and whether the Justice Department has withheld relevant materials. Oversight Democrats say the newest tranche raises “glaring questions” about the Epstein-Trump relationship; Republicans have previously criticized selective disclosures.
In September, House Democrats released pages from a 2003 “birthday book” for Epstein that included a sexually suggestive note purportedly signed by Trump; Trump and the White House called that document fake and denied authorship. Major outlets covered the denial at the time.
What’s next
- Expect additional document drops from the Oversight Democrats as they review the estate’s production.
- Separate Democratic efforts continue to force broader disclosure of federal Epstein files across the DOJ and other agencies.
Editor’s note: The committee’s uploads include redactions, and some language is difficult to decipher in the scans. Claims within the emails are uncorroborated in the public record, and key participants dispute other previously released items. Readers should treat the messages as allegations, not established fact, pending independent verification.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
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My emails reference Trump. Do you want to question me too. 🙂