Jeffrey Epstein referenced President Donald Trump in emails to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, saying that Trump “knew about the girls,” according to emails released by House Democrats.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three email chains on Wednesday, which were sent between 2011 and 2019.
Epstein died by suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. His death has sparked conspiracy theories, including some claiming that the government had him killed.
The administration faced intense backlash and bipartisan calls for transparency after the Justice Department and FBI released an unsigned memo saying they had reviewed the case against Epstein and Maxwell and that no other people would be charged in connection with their cases.
In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
“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,” she added.
In a 2019 email released by the committee on Wednesday, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls.”
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course, he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” the email read.
The two were friends for years, but the White House said earlier this year that Trump booted Epstein “out of his club for being a creep”.
“He took people that worked for me. And I told him, ‘Don’t do it anymore.’ And he did it,” Trump told reporters in July, adding, “I said, ‘Stay the hell out of here.’”
The emails contain multiple references to a victim, whose name is redacted in the release. The White House and Republicans on the committee said that the redacted name was Virginia Giuffre, a prominent Epstein survivor who died in April.
Trump said that Giuffre worked for him at Mar-a-Lago before Epstein “stole her.” Giuffre had never accused Trump of wrongdoing.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the released emails “raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called the Epstein story a “hoax” and accused Democrats of releasing the documents to distract from news about the government shutdown.
“There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats,” he said.
In another email released by Democrats that Epstein sent, he wrote Maxwell, saying Trump “spent hours” with someone the committee says was a victim.
“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,” the email said.
Asked by reporters at a White House press briefing, Leavitt denied Trump did any wrongdoing.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” she said.
