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Newly released emails shows that Donald Trump was referenced repeatedly in messages to and from the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019.
Published on Wednesday (12 November) by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, the emails span 2011 to 2019 and include exchanges between Epstein and a wide range of contacts. Among them Larry Summers, journalists, author Michael Wolff and Epstein’s own lawyers.
Within the emails, Epstein claimed Trump "knew about the girls" and "spent hours at my house" with a victim of sexual trafficking.
Trump neither sent nor received any of the emails, and he has not been accused of wrongdoing.
In one message highlighted by the Democrats' X/Twitter account, Epstein went further, outlining his personal assessment of the "dangerous" now-president.
He wrote: "i have met some very bad people ,, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body.. so yes- dangerous".
The email to former treasury secretary Summers was dated 8 February 2017.
Additional messages shed more light on Epstein's discussions.
In April 2011, Epstein told Ghislaine 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. police chief. etc. im 75% there”. Maxwell responded: “I have been thinking about that…"
And in January 2019, Epstein told Wolff that "[VICTIM] maralago [REDACTED] trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislane to stop".
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has dismissed the emails as wholly unremarkable, telling reporters the documents "prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong."
She argued that both the timing and the manner of their release point to a politically driven smear effort, and reiterated Trump’s past claim that he had expelled Epstein from his Florida club for misconduct.
Trump has repeatedly insisted the entire matter is a "hoax" and continues to deny any wrongdoing.
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