NEED TO KNOW
- A collection of three email correspondences between Jeffrey Epstein and others that appear to pertain to his relationship with President Donald Trump were publicly released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee
- In one of the emails, Epstein, a convicted sex offender accused of trafficking, claimed that the president “knew about the girls”
- White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a statement accusing Democrats of trying to “create a fake narrative” by “selectively” releasing emails from Epstein’s estate
New questions about Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with President Donald Trump have arisen as the result of just-released emails obtained by Congress.
On Wednesday, Nov. 12, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee shared three redacted email correspondences — one that Epstein, a convicted sex offender, wrote to his personal confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and two that he wrote to Trump biographer Michael Wolff.
The emails were included within 23,000 documents that the Oversight Committee allegedly received from the Epstein estate, according to a news release.
The first email exchange is dated April 2, 2011, and is between Epstein and Maxwell.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote. “[Redacted victim’s name] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
Maxwell replied, “I have been thinking about that…”
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In an exchange with Wolff dated Dec. 16, 2015, the journalist and author appears to be warning Epstein that CNN would ask Trump a question about their relationship during a presidential debate.
“If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?” Epstein replied to the first message.
Wolff appears to have replied: “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. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
“Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
Citing a transcript of the debate, The New York Times reported that Trump was not ultimately asked about Epstein.
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The final email was to Wolff and is dated Jan. 31, 2019.
“[Redacted victim’s name] mara lago,” Epstein wrote, followed by another redacted segment. “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
When reached by PEOPLE for comment about the newly released emails, the White House shared a statement from press secretary Karoline Leavitt that accused House Democrats of pushing a “hoax” to distract from Trump’s “historic accomplishments.”
“The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” Leavitt, 28, claimed. “The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” she added.
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“The more Donald Trump tries to cover-up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” California Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a statement. “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.”
The emails come amid an outcry for Trump’s White House to release the Epstein files, a cache of documents that are related to Epstein’s criminal cases.
Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors. He pleaded not guilty but died via suicide while inside his jail cell in New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019.
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Although Trump campaigned on releasing the Epstein files once in office, he has since referred to them as a “hoax” on Truth Social.
“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘b——-,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote in July 2025.
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Trump has distanced himself from Epstein over the years, though there have been documented ties between the two.
In September 2025, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee shared an image of a hand-drawn birthday note that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein in 2003, which Trump denied writing. The card featured a drawing of a woman’s body and an imagined conversation allegedly between Trump and Epstein.
In it, Trump allegedly wrote, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
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The correspondence was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal, prompting Trump to sue the outlet for $10 billion.
“We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform at the time. “I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case.”
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