Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released never-before-seen emails on Wednesday that revealed former financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump “knew about the girls” and referred to him as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”
The emails also claim that Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell, his former aide and accomplice, that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a message to Maxwell in April 2011. “(Victim) spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
An email between Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
In a separate email with author Michael Wolff in 2015, Epstein and Wolff discussed whether they could “craft an answer” for Trump’s upcoming CNN interview, where they believed he would be asked about his relationship with Epstein.
“I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency,” Wolff wrote to Epstein of Trump.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff said that when Trump is asked about Epstein, “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.”
An email between Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Wolff, released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
In another email to Wolff in 2019, Epstein claimed that Trump “knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” and had asked him to resign as a member of Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Palm Beach.
An email between Jeffrey Epstein and Michael Wolff, released by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover. 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,” ranking member Robert Garcia said.
“The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately. The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims,” Garcia added.
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
On Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to a question about the newly released emails, calling them “another distraction campaign” by the Democrats and “liberal media.”
“These emails prove absolutely nothing, other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” Leavitt said.
She said that Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until Trump kicked him out “because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.”
Leavitt referenced the email where the name of a victim was redacted and confirmed it was Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein and Maxwell‘s most well-known accusers.
She said that Giuffre maintained “that there was nothing inappropriate she ever witnessed, that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her.”
“And so I think it’s a question worth asking the Democrat Party. And you should all go ask them after this briefing of why they chose to redact that name of a victim who has already publicly made statements about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, and is unfortunately no longer with us,” Leavitt added.
Trump also addressed the newly released emails in a post on Truth Social, claiming that 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.”
“Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap. The Democrats cost our Country $1.5 Trillion Dollars with their recent antics of viciously closing our Country, while at the same time putting many at risk — and they should pay a fair price,” Trump wrote.
“There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats,” he added.
Later on Wednesday, House Republicans released 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate after months of delays.
“We are cooperating and showing support for the House Oversight Committee,” said Leavitt. “That’s part of the reason you are seeing these documents that were released today, because of the House oversight committees and Republicans’ efforts to get these out to the public. The Department of Justice also moved to unseal grand jury testimony… unfortunately, a judge declined those requests. So this administration has done more than any.”
Among other things revealed in the Republican document release, Epstein said, in reference to a 2018 New York Times op-ed, that he believed Trump was “dirty.”
Among the documents released by House Republicans, an email shows multiple people asking Epstein for further information about Trump.
In one exchange, Epstein claimed that Trump is “close to no one. . he talks to many people. he tells each one something different.”
Trump had said in 2019 that Epstein was a fixture in Palm Beach, but that the two had had a falling out a long time ago and he hadn’t spoken with Epstein for 15 years.
In July, Trump said he ended his friendship with Epstein and threw him out of his private club in Florida after Epstein betrayed him more than once by hiring people who had worked for him.
Trump did not say what his employees did or where they worked, and the White House declined further comment. But the White House had previously offered a different explanation for the falling out. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement in July: “The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
When Trump was in Scotland in July at his golf property in Turnberry, he answered questions from U.S. and U.K. journalists, who asked to explain why the relationship with Epstein had faltered.
“That’s such old history, very easy to explain, but I don’t want to waste your time by explaining it,” Trump said.
He then said he stopped talking to Epstein after “he did something that was inappropriate.”
“He hired help and I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again,’” Trump said. “He stole people that worked for me. I said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ He did it again, and I threw him out of the place, persona non grata.
“I threw him out and that was it. I’m glad I did, if you want to know the truth.”
Trump appeared with Epstein at social events in the 1990s and early 2000s. Trump’s name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s. Trump has denied ever being on the plane and has not been officially accused of any wrongdoing.
When asked about a Wall Street Journal report in July that alleged the president drew a picture in a birthday letter for Epstein years ago, Trump said, “I don’t do drawings, I’m not a drawing person.”
He said he would make exceptions for charity — sketching buildings — but insisted, “I don’t do drawings of women.”
The Journal report says the letter signed by Trump included a provocative drawing of a woman.
Trump has denied writing the letter and creating the drawing, calling the Wall Street Journal report on it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”
Trump sued the Journal, owned by Murdoch, in U.S. District Court in southern Florida on July 18 for its story reporting on the president’s ties to Epstein.
The Journal and its parent companies, Dow Jones and News Corp, filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s US$10-billion defamation lawsuit over the article and the motion contends that the article is true.
“The Birthday Book as produced by the Epstein estate and later publicly released by the House Oversight Committee contains a letter identical to the one described in the Article,” the motion stated, according to ABC News.
“The Complaint should be dismissed with prejudice, and the Court should award Defendants their reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs,” the motion added.
— With files from Global News and The Associated Press
