Jeffrey Epstein claimed that Donald Trump “knew about the girls” and “spent hours” with one of his victims in bombshell private emails released today.
The US president was mentioned in correspondence between the late sex offender, his socialite accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the author Michael Wolff.
The communications were released by Democrats who subpoenaed Epstein's estate, and have ramped up pressure on the US president to release the so-called “Epstein files”.
In an email with his former girlfriend Maxwell in 2011 Epstein wrote: “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."
Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for 20 years for sex trafficking young girls for Epstein, replied: "I have been thinking about that…”
In another email between Epstein and author Michael Wolff in 2019, Epstein claimed Trump "knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop."
In the email Epstein denies the US president's claims that he had banished him from Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida estate.
"Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever," the paedophile financier wrote ."Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop”.
Being named in the emails is not evidence of any criminal activity, and Trump has vehemently and consistently denied knowing about Epstein's sex trafficking.
The White House has claimed the victim mentioned in the email is Virginia Giuffre, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s accuser, who said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing. The identity of the victim was redacted in the email released by the Democrats.Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The US president has faced questions over his close relationship with Epstein, which Trump has repeatedly claimed ended years before the financier was accused of any criminality. Trump has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
In another email exchange between Mr Wolff and Epstein released on Wednesday the author allegedly said: "I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you--either on air or in scrum afterwards.”
The email is dated 15 December 2015, six months after Trump had declared he was running for the 2016 US presidential election.
Epstein allegedly replied to Wolff: "If we were to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?"
"I think you should let him hang himself," Wolff wrote the following day. "If he 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, 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."
The relationship between Trump and Epstein has came under renewed scrutiny following the release of a birthday message earlier this year allegedly sent and signed by the president, in which he described Epstein as a “pal” and states the pair have “certain things in common”.
Trump has claimed the letter, which features a drawing of a naked woman with Trump’s apparent signature as her pubic hair, is false, and denies ever signing or writing it.
The pair were friendly for years, but the president says he fell out with him in the early 2000s, two years before Epstein was first arrested. By 2008, Trump was saying that he had not been "a fan of his".
The White House has previously suggested that their fallout was connected to Epstein's behaviour, and that "the president kicked him out of his club for being a creep".
Trump says allegations against him in relation to Epstein are a "hoax" orchestrated by the Democratic Party.
Past reports have suggested that Donald Trump himself was told in May by his attorney general that his name appeared in files related to the investigations into Epstein.
The Trump administration has faced pressure to disclose the files in full and the release of the emails by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee has ramped up the calls.
“Oversight Dems have received new emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate that raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes,” Democrats posted Wednesday on social media. “Read them for yourself. It’s time to end this cover-up and RELEASE THE FILES.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.
"The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who 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.”
After the release of the emails which contained Trump’s name, 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein's estate were released by the House Oversight Committee.
