The author Michael Wolff speculated about what was in the files relating to the Jeffrey Epstein case in a podcast aired just hours before emails he sent to the disgraced financier mentioning Donald Trump were made public.
Meanwhile, in a CNN interview this week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said calls to release the documents were a “moot point” because of the investigation into the Epstein files by the House Oversight Committee. Both Wolff and Johnson’s comments came just days and hours before the emails featuring Wolff, Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein were released by minority Democrats on the Oversight Committee.
The biographer appeared on the Daily Beast podcast this week in an episode titled “Epstein Files are About to Spill Into Open,” which aired approximately 12 hours before the emails dropped.
In one of the emails Epstein sent Wolff, dated January 2019, the late sex offender apparently wrote: “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 later appeared to advise Epstein in an email dated December 15, 2015, about how he should handle Trump as he was gearing up for the 2016 presidential election.
Wolff told CNN that he did not “quite remember the context” of the emails.
“But I was engaged then in an in-depth conversation with Epstein about his relationship with Trump and this seems to be part of that conversation,” Wolff said in a statement.
On the podcast, Wolff speculated about the material in the Epstein files and explained to co-host Joanna Coles about the next steps ahead of a likely House vote on the matter.
“Theoretically, it is everything that exists within the United States government on Jeffrey Epstein,” he told Coles.
“What will happen, theoretically, is that the House will vote to subpoena the Epstein files…” he explained. “So they are going to subpoena something, but they don't know what they are subpoenaing and then it will be they'll have to figure out exactly what that is.”
He continued that the documents related to the Epstein case are dispersed across U.S. government departments. “It will be sort of up to Congress to kind of…define what they're looking for,” he said.
Wolff added that the scandal “will continue to haunt Donald Trump” and the matter “will go on.”
“People will continue to try to get to the bottom of it, including yours truly,” Wolff said.
Elsewhere, Johnson appeared Monday on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper, where he said calls to release the rest of the files were “a moot point” because Democrats on the House Oversight Committee had already shared a “treasure trove” of documents.
“It’s immaterial to us,” he said of the likely upcoming vote to release the files.
“It’s now a moot point by the way. The Oversight Committee has been delving in deeply to the Epstein investigation and they’ve released 43,000 pages of the Epstein files,” Johnson said.
The latest release of documents has ignited the controversy once again.
In an email dated December, 15, 2015 — the night of a debate in the Republican presidential primary — Wolff told the disgraced financier that CNN was “planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you – either on air or in scrum afterwards.”
Epstein replied: “If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff replied to Epstein, according to the email. “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,” Wolff apparently continued. “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.”
Other emails unearthed in the latest release included one dated April 2011, where Epstein claimed to Maxwell that Trump had “spent hours” with a victim, whose name is redacted.
“i want you to realise that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump...[VICTIM] spent hours at my hours with him...he has never once been mentioned,” Epstein told Maxwell, according to the emails.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the redacted name of the victim was the late Virginia Guiffre and accused the Democrats of a “smear” campaign.
Leavitt added that the “selectively leaked emails” were used by Democrats to “create a fake narrative.”
Bombshell Epstein-Trump emails give ‘false narrative’, White House says
White House outs ‘unnamed victim’ in bombshell Epstein-Trump emails and blasts Dems
Trump’s guest list as he hosts private White House dinner for Wall Street CEOs
BBC board: The 10 people tasked with appointing new director-general
Artist behind Chicago’s ‘Bean’ sculpture laments his work being used in CBP photos
Epstein claimed that Donald Trump ‘knew about the girls’ in private emails
