Newly released emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate have reignited scrutiny of US president Donald Trump’s past relationship with the disgraced financier, after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee published messages in which Epstein claimed Trump spent time with one of his victims and “knew about the girls”. The disclosures prompted an angry response from Trump and his aides, who dismissed the material as a politically motivated “hoax” and warned Republicans not to cooperate with Democrats’ efforts to force a broader release of Epstein-related files.
The committee, which has been reviewing thousands of documents obtained from the Epstein estate, on Wednesday released three email exchanges dating from 2011, 2015 and 2019. In the first, sent on 2 April 2011, Epstein wrote to his long-time associate Ghislaine Maxwell, referring to Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked” and linking him to a woman later identified by the White House as Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers. “Virginia spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there,” Epstein wrote, in a message that Democrats say shows the former president was aware of Epstein’s interactions with a young woman who would go on to allege she was trafficked to powerful men. Maxwell replied the same day: “I have been thinking about that.”
A second exchange, from December 2015, appears to show Epstein and author Michael Wolff discussing how Trump might handle questions about his association with Epstein during that year’s Republican presidential primary debates. According to the emails released by Democrats, Wolff wrote that he had heard CNN was planning to ask Trump about his relationship with Epstein and speculated on how the then-candidate might respond. Epstein answered: “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Wolff suggested that Epstein could use any false denials as “valuable PR and political currency”, or potentially “save him” if Trump’s campaign looked likely to succeed.
The most recent email, dated 31 January 2019 and also addressed to Wolff, directly challenges Trump’s account of his break with Epstein and contains the most explicit allegation about what the former president knew. In that message, Epstein rejected Trump’s later claim that he had been expelled from Mar-a-Lago, writing: “trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever.” He then added: “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” Democrats say that line indicates Epstein believed Trump was aware of his exploitation of young women and had intervened with Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 of conspiring to recruit and traffic minors for Epstein.
The authenticity of the emails is still being examined. CBS News reported that it had not independently verified the documents, while fact-checking outlet Snopes said it had confirmed the 2011 exchange between Epstein and Maxwell as genuine after reviewing metadata and related material. Wolff, who has written several books about Trump, said in a video posted to Instagram that the messages published by Democrats were real and that they formed part of a broader correspondence in which Epstein discussed his relationship with Trump. “The House Oversight Committee released emails directly linking Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein,” he said, adding that he had “been trying to talk about this story for a very long time now”.
The White House moved quickly to play down the significance of the release. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the disclosures as a partisan smear, arguing that Democrats were “selectively leaking” material from the trove of documents and insisting the emails did not show any criminal conduct by Trump. She identified the woman referenced in Epstein’s 2011 message as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide earlier this year and who had repeatedly stated in interviews and legal filings that Trump never abused her or engaged in sexual misconduct. Officials pointed to those past statements as evidence that the emails were being taken out of context.
Trump himself delivered what has been widely interpreted as his clearest response so far in a series of lengthy posts on his Truth Social platform. He labelled the latest disclosures the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax”, accusing Democrats of reviving the scandal to distract from a recent government shutdown and other domestic difficulties. “The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects,” he wrote, warning Republicans not to help Democrats obtain further releases of Epstein files. “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!” In another message over the summer, he complained that some of his “past supporters” had “bought into this ‘b———’ hook, line, and sinker”.
The clash over the emails comes as Democrats, joined by a small group of Republicans, attempt to force a vote in the House on a bill requiring the Justice Department to release all unclassified records linked to Epstein’s activities and his death in custody in 2019. With the swearing-in of Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva this week, supporters say they now have the numbers needed to trigger a discharge petition compelling the measure to the floor, over the objections of Speaker Mike Johnson and the Trump White House. Four Republican lawmakers – Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace and Thomas Massie – have already signed the petition, defying pressure from Trump allies who argue that the document fight is a “trap” designed to damage the President.
The episode revives longstanding questions about Trump’s social and business ties to Epstein, which date back to the 1990s. In a 2002 profile of Epstein in New York magazine, Trump was quoted describing him as a “terrific guy” and saying that “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side”. Since Epstein’s arrest in 2019 on federal sex-trafficking charges, Trump has repeatedly tried to distance himself, telling reporters that he was “not a fan” and claiming they had a falling-out many years earlier. He has said the rupture stemmed from Epstein allegedly “stealing” staff, including Giuffre, from his Mar-a-Lago resort, and has also pointed to a reported dispute over a Palm Beach property.
Images and witness accounts, however, have shown the pair socialising together over a period of at least 15 years, including at parties in Florida and New York and at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, where Trump, his future wife Melania, Epstein and Maxwell were photographed together. Court documents and flight logs have indicated that Trump was among a long list of figures who flew on Epstein’s private jet, although he has not been accused of participating in Epstein’s abuse of minors, and prosecutors have not charged him with any crime in connection with the case.
In recent months, Trump has also clashed with media organisations over renewed reporting on his links to Epstein. In September, Democrats on the Oversight Committee released an image of a bawdy birthday note that Trump allegedly sent Epstein in 2003, depicting the outline of a naked woman and bearing what appears to be Trump’s signature. Trump has denied writing the letter and filed a multi-billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the document. In a Truth Social post announcing the case, he described the newspaper as a “useless rag” and said he was bringing a “POWERHOUSE Lawsuit” against those involved.
The latest emails add to the growing body of material that sheds light on how Epstein himself viewed the relationship. In the 2011 message to Maxwell, he appeared to regard Trump’s lack of public scrutiny as a strategic advantage, calling him “the dog that hasn’t barked” and noting that Giuffre’s name had not surfaced alongside Trump’s despite her spending “hours” with him. In the 2019 note to Wolff, he contended that Trump was misrepresenting their history at Mar-a-Lago and flatly asserted that the president “knew about the girls”. While those claims are untested and, in some cases, only partially corroborated, they present a more direct allegation than had previously emerged from Epstein’s own words.
For Epstein’s victims and their advocates, the dispute over the emails is entwined with a broader demand for transparency about the financier’s enablers and associates. Giuffre, whose name the White House linked to the newly public messages, had accused several powerful men of abusing her but had specifically said Trump did not, and her death in April has intensified calls for the release of the full investigative record. Other survivors have said that only a comprehensive publication of the remaining files – including correspondence, visitor logs and financial records – will answer lingering questions about how Epstein operated and who may have helped him.
Politically, the fallout reaches beyond Trump’s personal reputation. His warnings to Republicans not to “fall into” what he describes as a Democratic “trap” highlight concerns within his circle that further disclosures could damage him as he seeks to maintain his influence over the party. At the same time, the willingness of several conservative lawmakers to side with Democrats on the release of the Epstein files underscores frustration among some of his allies and supporters, who argue that fulfilling earlier promises of transparency would help restore public trust. With the House now poised to vote on releasing more material, the confrontation over what Epstein wrote about Trump – and how much more remains unseen – is likely to intensify in the coming weeks.