US lawmakers have released 23,000 pages of documents from the estate of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, bringing his ties to prominent figures, including former President Donald Trump, back into the spotlight.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee initially released three email exchanges, before Republicans released a much larger amount of material. One of the released emails, dated April 2011, was sent by Epstein to his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, in which he writes: “I want you to understand that the dog that didn’t bark is Trump… [the victim] spent hours at my house with him.”
The White House immediately responded, saying that the “victim” mentioned in the message is the late Virginia Giuffre, who they said repeatedly stated that Donald Trump “was not involved in any wrongdoing.” Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt called the allegations “a hoax fabricated by Democrats to create a false scandal,” while Democratic representatives claimed that the documents “strike the White House cover-up on the Epstein case.”
In a response on his “Truth Social” network, Trump accused Democrats of “trying to revive the Epstein scam to distract from their failure to manage the government shutdown.” He added:
“Only a very bad or stupid Republican would fall into this trap. Democrats have cost our country $1.5 trillion with their recent dangerous behavior. There should be no deviation from the focus on reopening the country and repairing the damage they have caused.”
During the White House press conference, Leavitt said that the documents "clearly show that President Trump did nothing wrong," recalling that he "expelled Epstein from the Mar-a-Lago club as soon as he learned that he was a pedophile and a disgusting person."
At one point during the briefing, a reporter asked whether Trump thought Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) should testify before Congress about his ties to Epstein. Leavitt said he “hasn’t discussed that with the president yet,” and left the room, ignoring further questions about the scandal.
Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019, was previously convicted of sexually abusing minors. The new release of the documents has sparked fresh debate about how his web of connections with politicians, businessmen and celebrities continues to cast a shadow over American public life.
