Jeffrey Epstein Claimed Trump “Knew About the Girls”

Poonam Sharma
In a stunning turn of events, House Democrats released a batch of emails from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday that appear to implicate former President Donald Trump in Epstein’s activities. The emails, obtained as part of an ongoing investigation by the House Oversight Committee, contain disturbing references suggesting that Trump “knew about the girls,” reigniting political and moral controversy centered on the Epstein scandal.

The emails, exchanged by Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell with journalist Michael Wolff between 2011 and 2019, were released after months of partisan dispute over whether the Department of Justice should make all Epstein-related documents public. Epstein’s death by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges left behind a cloud of speculation and unanswered questions about the extent of his network and the involvement of influential figures.

Explosive References to Trump and Mar-a-Lago

In one of the 2019 emails released by the committee, Epstein writes to journalist Michael Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls.” It also references Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, said to be the location where Epstein met several of his associates and some of his alleged victims.

“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” Epstein wrote in one of the communications sent just months before his death.

While the victims’ names are redacted, House Democrats say one of them was Virginia Giuffre, a key survivor who briefly worked at Mar-a-Lago before being recruited by Epstein. Giuffre died earlier this year, but she never implicated Trump in any personal wrongdoing. Trump has maintained that he “threw Epstein out of his club for being a creep,” touting that he ended their friendship long before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.

White House Calls It a “Political Hoax”

The White House shot back quickly after the release. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused House Democrats of “selectively leaking documents” as part of a “partisan smear campaign.”

“These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments,” Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News. “Any American with common sense can see this as a hoax designed to divert attention from the government reopening and the President’s leadership.”

Republicans on the Oversight Committee called it “click-bait not grounded in facts.” They then moved to counter it with over 20,000 additional pages from Epstein’s estate, which they said gave a more complete and contextual picture of Epstein’s correspondence.

Epstein’s Network and Political Fallout

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia of California, said the newly released emails “raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the true nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.”

The revelations have revived bipartisan demands for complete transparency. A group of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle has been circulating a petition to force a vote to compel the Justice Department to release all Epstein-related documents. The motion now has enough support to move forward, with Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva expected to become the 218th signatory on the petition.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking and related charges. A few of the emails, which were also included in the cache obtained by Insider, were between Maxwell and Epstein. In one, from 2011, Epstein wrote to Maxwell, “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.”

Journalist Michael Wolff’s Position

Michael Wolff, the journalist who received several of the emails, confirmed to ABC News that he had been in active contact with Epstein in 2019 regarding Trump. Wolff said he was trying to persuade Epstein to publicly discuss his connection with the former President.

“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump,” Wolff said. “He proved to be an enormously valuable source to me.”

In one exchange, Epstein asked Wolff, “If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Wolff replied, “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, that gives you valuable PR and political currency.”

The emails appear to indicate that both Epstein and Wolff were alert to the potential political damage revelations of Trump’s association with Epstein could cause – and may even have discussed ways of exploiting that information.

Unanswered Questions and Renewed Scrutiny

Epstein’s death by suicide has not stemmed widespread conspiracy theories that powerful figures had him silenced to protect their secrets. These newly released communications implicate Trump directly in Epstein’s orbit and suggest that he was aware of his crimes, which is certain to reignite speculation and deepen public distrust in both political and judicial institutions. The e-mails, while containing no direct evidence linking Trump to Epstein’s criminal acts, do provide a rare glimpse into how close the former president was to a man who leveraged power, money, and connections to operate one of modern history’s most notorious sex trafficking rings. As Congress prepares to vote on whether to declassify all Epstein-related materials, one thing is clear: the scandal that began more than two decades ago continues casting its long, dark shadow over America’s political elite.