Congress releases an email in which Epstein says Trump ‘spent hours’ with victim of sex trafficking

House Democrats released three new emails from millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein this Wednesday, the same day the longest government shutdown in U.S. history was approaching its end.

In one of them, Epstein writes that Donald Trump “spent hours” at the financier’s home with one of his victims, whose name is redacted to preserve her privacy. The recipient of that 2011 email is Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in a minimum-security prison as an accomplice to her best friend’s crimes. In the email, Epstein writes about the future president: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump.” He adds that the then-real estate magnate’s encounter with that sex trafficking victim “has never once been mentioned.”

In a second message, Epstein — who died in 2019 in a maximum-security cell while awaiting trial, accused of abusing hundreds of underage teens — suggests that the man who would become president of the United States was aware of his behavior. “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine [sic] to stop,” Epstein writes to journalist Michael Wolff, a critic of Trump during his first presidency and the recipient of the other two emails, which come from files that Congress obtained via court order from Epstein’s estate.

The third exchange, also with Wolff, took place in 2015, during the campaign that would eventually bring the real estate magnate and reality TV star to the White House. In it, the journalist warns that in a CNN Republican primary debate, they planned to question the candidate about his relationship with Epstein. Epstein asks: “If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Inaction, Wolff suggests. “I think you should let him hang himself,” he replies. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane [referring to the private jets Epstein used to traffic minors to his private island] or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. 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,” writes Wolff.

Trump took several hours to respond to the latest revelations. Around 2 p.m. Washington time, he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social: “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.” He also warned Republicans not to “fall into that trap” and instructed them: “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!”

Trump has always denied having any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes, and it has never been proven that he participated in or was complicit in them. The U.S. president maintained a 15-year relationship with the convicted sex offender, which lasted until around 2004, when they stopped seeing each other. That was before the first case of child abuse in 2006 — long before Epstein died in 2019 in a Manhattan cell while awaiting trial for sex trafficking, and before Trump’s first term as president of the United States in 2017.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt identified the victim mentioned by Epstein as Virginia Giuffre, perhaps the most famous of all, partly because her accusations led to the fall from grace of Prince Andrew. Giuffre died by suicide in April after being hit by a bus a month earlier in Australia, where she lived. In the past, she stated she did not believe Trump was involved in Epstein’s sex trafficking network.

“Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense see right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.” At a press briefing at the White House, Leavitt added the documents “prove nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”

Later in the morning, House Republicans released 23,000 documents from Epstein’s family obtained through a court subpoena in August by James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who is receiving materials from the pedophile billionaire in stages. The move appears to reflect a delicate balance Republicans have maintained for months: showing toughness on crimes as heinous as Epstein’s while protecting Trump from political attacks related to the matter.

“Democrats whine asking for ‘the files to be released,’ but they only selectively pick ones they know will generate internet traffic. You deserve the whole truth,” read a message from the Republicans on the Oversight Committee.

Among the vast materials is an email in which Epstein describes the then-president as “borderline insane.” Pending a thorough review, this message stands out in an ocean of papers where Trump is mentioned several times but most lack broader significance.

The shadow of Epstein’s crimes has followed Trump since the financier’s death. The memory of that old friendship has resurfaced in the first months of his second presidency, even causing him the greatest crisis among his MAGA followers, some of whose most prominent members have spent years speculating about the case — an appalling web of sexual abuse with hundreds of victims. A group of these victims recently went to Congress to demand justice.

Maxwell maneuvering for a pardon

This week it was also reported that Maxwell is maneuvering to secure a pardon from Trump while in the prison to which the Department of Justice transferred her in the summer, where, according to a confidant who spoke to Congress, she is being treated “more like she’s a guest in a hotel.”

In early July, a joint statement from the FBI and the Department of Justice announced that U.S. authorities did not plan to release new documents about the pedophile, contrary to what had been promised in previous months. Nor would they release the “Epstein list,” which supposedly includes the names of wealthy and famous friends who took part in the millionaire’s child sex trafficking network.

Conspiracy theorists suspect that such a list exists and is being withheld to protect those involved. That same joint statement also confirmed what the coroner had already concluded: that Epstein died by suicide in his cell — despite the murder theories surrounding his death, fueled by its strange circumstances, given that the inmate was left unsupervised for longer than protocol allowed.

“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,” said Representative Robert Garcia (D-California) in a press statement on Tuesday. Garcia serves on the House Oversight Committee, which received the materials from Epstein’s estate.

The House of Representatives has been in recess since before the start of the government shutdown, which began on October 1 and is now about to end — more than 43 days later — making it the longest in U.S. history. This Wednesday, the lower chamber is expected to vote to reopen the flow of public spending, as the Senate did on Monday. The end of the shutdown will also mean the return of activity in the House of Representatives and the swearing-in of Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva.

Grijalva was elected in a special election to fill a vacancy for the state of Arizona. Mike Johnson, Republican majority leader in the House, has refused to allow her to take office, even though he could have done so. According to Johnson, this was to avoid depriving Grijalva of a ceremony with full honors, since the government was shut down. Few in Washington are fooled by the real reason: once she takes her seat in Congress, Democrats — who are in the minority — together with a handful of Republicans, will have enough signatures on a petition to release Epstein’s documents. Then it may become clear how often and in what context Trump’s name appears in those documents.

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