Epstein emails allege Trump «knew about the girls» and «spent hours at my house» with one victim.
Epstein emails allege Trump «knew about the girls» and «spent hours at my house» with one victim.
Bombshell emails
House Democrats have released bombshell emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Donald Trump allegedly knew far more about his abuse than he has ever admitted.
The messages cast new doubt on Trump’s repeated denials that he had any involvement in, or knowledge of, the sex-trafficking operation once run by a man he long counted as a close friend.
Preferential treatment
In the bombshell new emails, reported by several major outlets including the New York Times, Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell – whom the Trump administration recently transferred to a minimum-security camp, where some media have suggested she is receiving preferential treatment – are shown exchanging messages in April 2011, openly wondering about the mystery of Donald Trump’s silence.
An unnamed victim
The tone of their conversation suggests they were visibly puzzled that Trump had not spoken out. As Epstein put it in one email to Maxwell:
«I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is Trump». Epstein went on to write that an unnamed victim «spent hours at my house with him» adding that «he has never once been mentioned.»
Something strange
Donald Trump’s name had never been brought up — not by her in public, not by the authorities, not in court filings, and not in media coverage.
That total silence around Trump, despite the time she allegedly spent with him, is presented in the email as something strange and almost suspect, important enough for Epstein to spell it out explicitly.
«I have been thinking about that,» Maxwell wrote back.
Before his death
The author Michael Wolff, who has written four books about Trump and was in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before his death as he was reportedly preparing to write a biography of him, also appears in the emails released by House Democrats.
Her alleged ties to Epstein
Wolff, who is currently suing Melania Trump after she threatened to sue him over his reporting on her alleged ties to Epstein, received a message from Epstein in January 2019 in which Epstein described his relationship with Trump, their eventual falling-out and what he claimed Trump knew about the victims.
«Of course he knew»
Referring to his past presence at Mar-a-Lago, Epstein told Wolff that «Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever» and added, about Trump’s knowledge of the situation, «Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.»
Leverage
In another email between the two men in 2015, as Trump was on the verge of becoming president of the United States and was publicly denying any real knowledge of Epstein or downplaying his involvement with him, Wolff suggested to Epstein that Trump’s denials could actually give him leverage, writing:
«If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.»
The White House
Wolff added in that exchange that Epstein could even turn Trump’s denials to his own advantage if Trump won the presidency, telling him:
«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.» As the White House had not commented on these bombshell emails at the time of writing, House Democrats were vowing further releases as part of their ongoing investigation into the Epstein dossier.