The late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alleged that President Donald Trump knew about the girls he was trafficking, according to new emails from Epstein’s estate released by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday morning.
The new emails are part of a trove of materials handed over by Epstein’s estate to congressional investigators on the Oversight panel, which has been investigating the Epstein case for months.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote in a 2019 email to Michael Wolff, an apparent plea from the president for Epstein to leave Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. “[O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Wolff, the recipient, is likely the journalist who has written at length about the Trump presidency. He was referencing Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted Epstein co-conspirator currently in prison.
Epstein also wrote in an email in 2011 to Maxwell that Trump was a “dog that hasn’t barked” — what appeared to mean that Trump had not disclosed details about Epstein’s activities. Epstein added that a victim, whose name was redacted, spent hours with Trump.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in relation to the Epstein allegations. No evidence has so far suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. The president also has maintained that he and Epstein had a falling out years ago.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Also in the emails released by Oversight Democrats Wednesday, Wolff wrote in a 2015 message to Epstein that he heard Trump – then a presidential candidate – would be asked by CNN about the convicted sex offender. Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be.
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded. If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane 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,” Wolff continued, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff added that Trump could potentially praise Epstein when asked. Wolff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The materials were received by the House Oversight Committee last Thursday, meaning the move by Democrats to release the materials was likely timed to coincide with the House’s return from a lengthy recess to vote Wednesday evening on ending the prolonged government shutdown.
At 4 p.m. Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson is set to swear in Rep-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) after weeks of delay. Grijalva plans to go straight to the well of the House to sign a so-called discharge petition that would end-run leadership and force a floor vote on legislation to mandate the release of the Epstein files.
Her support will get the number of signatures to 218, setting the clock for when leadership must schedule that vote after Johnson has tried for months to avoid that likely inevitable outcome.
Though the bipartisan bill calling for the files’ release would also need to be passed by the Senate and then signed into law by the president, it would be a politically toxic exercise for Republicans and passage would bring it closer to potentially reaching the president’s desk.
But it’s not clear how the new emails will affect House GOP leadership’s plans for the vote on the legislation that at this point seems inevitable. As of Wednesday morning, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota had no plans to whip the votes on the measure on the chamber floor, according to three people granted anonymity to share internal party dynamics.
The GOP-led Oversight Committee has been working to present an alternative to the discharge petition after a subcommittee voted in July to compel the larger panel to subpoena the Justice Department for documents related to the Epstein investigation.
Johnson has brandished the Oversight probe as an effective means to investigate the Epstein matter, while Republicans have argued the congressional investigation has so far exonerated Trump.
Since that time, the Trump administration has turned over relatively few non-public materials, while Democrats have alleged it’s part of a cover-up to protect Trump from scrutiny.
Republicans counter that Democrats are the ones politicizing the process.
“Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate click-bait that is not grounded in the facts,” said a spokesperson for the Oversight panel’s GOP majority in a statement Wednesday. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials. Democrats should stop politicizing this investigation and focus on delivering transparency, accountability, and justice for the survivors.”
A spokesperson for House Oversight Democrats did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the timing of their release of the new emails.
Since the Justice Department quietly announced in July that it would not release further information in the Epstein case, the issue has grown into a major political liability for the GOP. Trump has continued to face scrutiny over his relationship with Epstein, and Democrats have sought to stoke division within the president’s base over the administration’s purported commitment to transparency.
Consternation about Maxwell has also grown in the intervening months. The Epstein associate sat for an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in July, in which she claimed she had not seen Trump in an inappropriate setting and praised the president. But she is also currently preparing a commutation application with the administration, and Trump has not ruled out pardoning her.
In addition, Democrats are claiming that Maxwell has been given preferential treatment since she began cooperating with the administration. Shortly after her transcribed interview with Blanche, she was transferred to a minimum security prison camp.
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
