Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls,” Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of orchestrating sex trafficking of young girls, wrote in private emails House Democrats released Wednesday.
“Of course he knew about the girls,” Epstein said of Trump in an email to author and journalist Michael Wolff in early 2019, when Trump was nearing the end of his first term as President.
After months of political bickering over the well-connected sex offender’s documents, dubbed “the Epstein files,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee publicly released some of Epstein’s emails to Wolff and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking after Epstein’s death.
The emails are just a small part of a collection of 23,000 documents Epstein’s estate released to the committee and are sure to revive questions about what the president knew about Epstein’s sexual misconduct with girls and young women.
Trump has denied knowing anything about Epstein’s crimes and no investigation has tied Trump to them.
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” California Democrat Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) said in a statement as he released the documents.
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President,” Garcia added. “The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately. The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims.”
Epstein, 66, died by suicide in a New York jail in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested and federally charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. A watchdog report released last year found that negligence, misconduct and other failures at the jail contributed to his death.
More than a decade earlier, Epstein evaded federal criminal charges when he struck a plea deal in a south Florida case related to accusations that he molested dozens of girls.
As part of the agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges, including soliciting prostitution. He registered as a sex offender and served 13 months in jail but was allowed to leave six days a week to work at his office.