House Democrats Release Epstein Emails Mentioning Trump; White House Objects

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released three chains of emails sent by Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2019 that refer to President Trump, and the White House dismissed the release as a partisan smear, according to NBC News and Al Jazeera.

The Democrats said the documents came from Epstein’s estate as part of the committee’s investigation, NBC News reported. NBC News said it has not independently verified the emails. Epstein, a convicted sex offender, died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

In a 2019 email to a journalist, sent months before Epstein’s death, he wrote that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” and that Mr. Trump “said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” according to the version NBC News reproduced. Parts of the message were redacted. NBC News said the message appeared to refer to the soured relationship between the two men, who were friends for years. CNBC and PBS NewsHour also reported the 2019 line.

In a separate 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, Epstein wrote that “that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” adding that one of his victims, whose name was redacted, “spent hours at my house with him,” according to PBS, CNBC and Al Jazeera. It is not clear what Epstein meant, CNBC and Al Jazeera said. Maxwell replied, “I have been thinking about that,” PBS and Al Jazeera reported.

The White House rejected the release. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” in a statement to NBC News, and called it a distraction from the reopening of the government. NBC reported that Mr. Trump also accused Democrats of releasing the documents to distract from the government shutdown. Ms. Leavitt added that Mr. Trump “kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees,” according to Al Jazeera and CNBC.

Mr. Trump has said publicly that he and Epstein fell out. CNBC noted that he has said Epstein was removed because “he stole people who worked for me,” and NBC News quoted him telling reporters in July that he told Epstein to “stay the hell out of here.”

The emails land in a long-running political fight over how much the government should disclose. NBC News noted that the administration faced intense backlash and bipartisan calls for transparency after the Justice Department and FBI released an unsigned memo saying no other people would be charged and no additional material would be released.

NBC News said it had not independently verified the emails, and CNBC said it is also unclear what Epstein meant by “knew about the girls.”