Epstein emails shake Washington, fuel debate over Trump and transparency
Newly released emails written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are sending shockwaves through Washington. President Donald Trump is mentioned in the emails, reigniting a fierce political fight over whether the public should see all of the Epstein files.
20,000 emails released
House lawmakers released more than 20,000 emails Epstein sent between 2011 and 2019 on Wednesday.
In one 2011 message to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote that then-businessman Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” with a young woman who would later accuse Epstein of sex trafficking — referring to Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked.”
In another exchange, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump “of course knew about the girls” and had asked Maxwell “to stop.”
And in a 2015 email, Wolff warned Epstein about how Trump might handle questions from CNN about their relationship, writing, “I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.”
Democrats and Republicans clash over release
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the emails first, saying they raise new questions about what Trump knew and when. But the emails, written years before Epstein’s death and without independent verification, don’t offer direct evidence of wrongdoing.
Republicans fired back hours later with a 20,000-page dump of Epstein documents from his estate, accusing Democrats of “cherry-picking” the most explosive content to embarrass the president.
White House calls it a “hoax”
The White House called the release politically motivated, part of what it described as a partisan effort to smear the president.
“These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
She added that Trump “kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago because he was a pedophile and a creep.”
Leavitt also noted that the woman referenced in the 2011 email was Virginia Giuffre — one of Epstein’s best-known survivors — who never accused Trump of wrongdoing. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
The emails span from 2011 — when Epstein was rebuilding his social circle — to 2019, just months before he died in federal custody. They include correspondence with Wolff, who later authored a bestselling book about Trump.
Grijalva’s signature pushes Epstein files vote forward
The document dump landed the same day the House returned from a seven-week shutdown recess and welcomed its newest member, Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz.
Moments after being sworn in, Grijalva signed the discharge petition to force a House vote on releasing all government files related to Epstein, providing the crucial 218th signature needed to trigger the vote.
“With my signing, we move one step closer to the truth, the truth that they will try to deny, but that survivors deserve their day of justice and the American people demand it,” Grijalva said.
Her signature now compels the House to vote on a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., requiring the Justice Department to release all Epstein-related documents with victims’ names redacted.
All 214 Democrats and four Republicans have signed on.
House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed Wednesday that he will bring the bill to the floor next week, earlier than expected, forcing members of both parties to go on record about whether to make the full Epstein files public.
A bitter delay
Grijalva’s swearing-in ended a seven-week delay that Democrats said was meant to prevent her from becoming the 218th signer.
“It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them,” she said on the House floor. “This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing-in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons.”
Speaker Johnson insisted the delay was procedural, not political, saying he followed House custom and that Grijalva “didn’t miss a vote.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
