1 of 4 | President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Monday. On Wednesday, House Democrats released emails by Jeffrey Epstein appearing to discuss what Trump knew about the convicted sex offender’s crimes. Photo by Craig Hudson/UPI | License Photo
Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday released emails between convicted sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell that mentioned President Donald Trump.
The correspondence, released by Rep. Robert Garcia, ranking Democrat on the committee, also includes emails between Epstein and Michael Wolff, an author who has written four books about the Trump presidency.
While at least one of the references is somewhat cryptic in its reference to Trump, others more openly appear to discuss what the president knew about Epstein’s scheme to bring women and underage girls to his private island for his friends to sexually abuse.
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” Garcia said in a statement accompanying the released emails. “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.
“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.
The emails were partially redacted, presumably to conceal the identities of victims involved in the crimes.
“i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump..[victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there,” Epstein wrote in an email to Maxwell dated April 2, 2011.
She responded: “I have been thinking about that… .”
In a three email exchange in December 2015, months after Trump declared his candidacy for president, Wolff and Epstein discussed the real estate mogul’s upcoming appearance on CNN.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein.
Epstein responded: “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”
Wolff wrote, “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 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. Of course, it is possible that, when asked, 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.”
On Jan. 1, 2019, Epstein wrote an email to Wolff.
“[Victim] mara lago. [redacted]. trump said he asked me to resign. never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Wolff, speaking in a phone interview with ABC News on Wednesday, said he couldn’t remember the specific context of the 2015 email exchange, “but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me. Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
Trump hasn’t directly responded to Wednesday’s release, but White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt accused Democrats of “selectively” leaking the emails “to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.” She also alleged that the redacted name in the emails is Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April. UPI has not independently confirmed the redacted information from the emails.
Leavitt said Giuffre “repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre.
“These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”
