 "House Democrats release emails linking Trump to Epstein, claim he ‘knew about the girls’; White House slams ‘fake narrative'")
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails which they said raised new questions about President Donald Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and how much he knew about his abuse of underage girls, an assertion the White House blasted as a “fake narrative.”
According to Democrats, the emails include exchanges between Epstein, author Michael Wolff, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding Epstein’s crimes.
In one 2019 message to Wolff, Epstein allegedly wrote that Trump “knew about the girls,” though the context and meaning of the phrase remain unclear.
The email release coincided with the swearing-in of a new Democratic House member — a move expected to tip the balance in a campaign to force a vote on releasing all non-classified files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The development has reignited public interest in a case that has long been a political liability for President Donald Trump.
Among the newly released messages is a 2011 email from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell in which he referred to Trump as “that dog that hasn’t barked,” and claimed the former president had “spent hours at my house” with one of his victims, whose name was redacted.
Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking, saying the two were once friends but later fell out. Epstein died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.
“The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. She added that the redacted victim mentioned in the emails was the late Virginia Giuffre, “who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever.”
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The Epstein case has dogged Trump for months, upsetting even his own political supporters, who believe the government has been covering up Epstein’s ties to the rich and powerful, and have been unusually critical of his Justice Department for not releasing more information about Epstein’s alleged crimes.
Just four in 10 Republicans told an October Reuters/Ipsos poll that they approved of Trump’s handling of the Epstein files – well below the nine in 10 who approve of his overall performance in the White House.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is scheduled to swear in Democratic Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva on Wednesday to succeed her late father in Congress. Grijalva is expected to provide the final signature needed for a petition to force a House vote to release all unclassified records related to Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.
The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Representative Robert Garcia, called on the Justice Department to fully release the Epstein files to the public.
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover. 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,” he said in a statement.
With inputs from agencies
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