WASHINGTON- A slow trickle of revelations detailing President Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein that have burdened the White House all year has turned into an avalanche after House lawmakers released a trove of documents implying the president may have intimate knowledge of his friend's criminal activity.
The extent of Epstein's interest in Trump became clear Thursday as media organizations reviewed more than 20,000 documents from the convicted sex offender's estate released by the House Oversight Committee, prompting a bipartisan majority in the House, including up to half of Republican lawmakers, to pledge support for a measure to force the Justice Department to release all files related to its investigation of Epstein.
In an email discovered Thursday, which Epstein sent to himself months before he committed suicide in federal custody, he wrote: “Trump knew.” The White House has denied that Trump knew about or was involved in Epstein's years-long operation that abused more than 200 women and girls.
The scandal comes at a precarious political moment for Trump, who faces a 36% approval rating, according to the latest Associated Press-NORC poll, and whose grip on the Republican Party and the MAGA movement has begun to diminish as his final term begins to end ahead of next year's midterm elections.
The Trump administration's attempts to quell the scandal have failed to discourage the public across the political spectrum from the case.
The records paint the broadest picture yet of Trump's relationship with Epstein, the subject of endless online fascination and conspiracy theories as well as growing bipartisan interest in Congress.
In several emails, Epstein, a disgraced financier who maintained a close friendship with Trump until a confrontation in the mid-2000s, said the latter “knew about the girls” involved in his operation and that Trump “spent hours” with one in private. Epstein also alleged that he could “take him down” with damaging information.
In several exchanges, Epstein described himself as someone who knew Trump well. The emails show how he followed Trump's business practices and the evolution of the president's political efforts.
Other communications show Epstein closely following Trump's movements at the beginning of his first term, and at one point attempted to contact the Russian government to share his “insight” into Trump's leanings and thinking.
White House officials attempted to thwart the effort to release the files on Wednesday, holding a tense meeting with a Republican congresswoman in the White House Situation Room, a move the administration said demonstrated its willingness to “sit down with members of Congress to address their concerns.”
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York accused the White House and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of “running a pedophile protection program” for trying to block efforts to release Epstein's files.
The legislative effort in the House does not guarantee a vote in the Senate, much less bipartisan approval of the measure there. And the president, who for months has condemned his supporters for their repeated calls for transparency in the case, will almost certainly veto the bill if it reaches his desk.
Epstein died in a federal prison in Manhattan awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019. The New York City medical examiner and the Justice Department's inspector general ruled his death a suicide.
As journalists examine the documents in the coming days, Trump's relationship with Epstein is likely to remain in the spotlight.
In an email Epstein sent to himself shortly before his imprisonment and death, he wrote that Trump was aware of the financier's sexual activity during a period in which he was accused of wrongdoing.
“Trump knew this,” she wrote, “and came to my house many times during that period.”
“He never received a massage,” Epstein added. Epstein paid for “massages” of girls that often led to sexual activity.
Trump has blamed Democrats for the issue coming up again.
“Democrats are using the Jeffrey Epstein hoax to try to deflect their massive failures, particularly the most recent one: THE SHUTDOWN!” the president wrote Wednesday in a social media post, hours after the records were made public.
Trump made a public appearance later that day to sign legislation ending the government shutdown, but refused to answer when reporters shouted questions about Epstein after the event.
Trump appears in several emails
The newly released correspondence offers a rare look at how Epstein, in his own words, related to Trump in ways that were not previously known. In some cases, Epstein's correspondence suggests that the president knew more about Epstein's criminal conduct than Trump has let on.
In the months before Epstein's arrest on sex trafficking charges, he mentioned Trump in some emails that imply the latter knew the financier's victims.
In January 2019, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about girls,” while discussing his membership at Mar-a-Lago, the president's private club and resort in South Florida.
Trump has said he ended his relationship with Epstein because he had “hired” one of his employees at Mar-a-Lago. The White House has also said that Trump expelled Epstein from his club because he was “behaving like a scoundrel.”
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never as a member,” Epstein wrote in the email to Wolff.
One of the employees was Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's survivors who committed suicide this year. Giuffre said in a deposition in a civil case that she never saw Trump sexually abuse minors at Epstein's home.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee identified Giuffre as one of the victims whose names were redacted in an April 2011 email.
In that email, Epstein wrote to Ghislaine Maxwell, a former associate who was later convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors, that Trump was “the dog that hasn't barked.”
“[Victim] “I spent hours in my house with him,” Epstein wrote. “They've never mentioned it even once.”
“I've been thinking about that…” Maxwell replied.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that the emails “prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
The news over the summer that Trump had written a lewd birthday card to Epstein, drawing the silhouette of a naked woman with a note that read “may each day be another wonderful secret,” had sparked panic in the West Wing that the files might have prolific mentions of Trump.
