House Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have released a new batch of email correspondence from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, containing references to Donald Trump that the committee says raise “serious questions” about the former president’s knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.
The documents, selected from over 23,000 documents received via subpoena, include exchanges between Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and author Michael Wolff. In a 2011 email to Maxwell, Epstein referred to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and claimed an alleged victim “spent hours at my house with him,” yet Trump had “never once been mentioned” publicly.
A more direct and damaging exchange from December 2015, six months into Trump’s presidential campaign, involved Wolff soliciting advice from Epstein on how Trump should address their friendship in a CNN interview. In this correspondence, Epstein wrote of Trump, referring to his victims, that “of course he knew about the girls.” Wolff then advised Epstein to “let him hang himself” by having Trump deny having been on the plane or at the house, suggesting it would give Epstein “valuable PR and political currency.”
The release of these specific messages once again casts a national spotlight on the years-long association between the late financier and the now-president. Democrats argue that the continuous emergence of such correspondence necessitates greater transparency and full disclosure of the remaining “Epstein files” for the sake of justice and public interest. Trump has consistently and vehemently denied any involvement in or knowledge of Epstein’s sex-trafficking activities. The committee’s ranking member stated, “The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover.”
