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Jeffrey Epstein said that Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” with a woman later identified as a victim of sex trafficking, according to emails that raise fresh questions about the US president’s relationship with the late paedophile.
Democrats on the House oversight committee on Wednesday published three email exchanges containing allegations that Trump was more aware of Epstein’s illicit activities than the president has said.
In one 2011 email addressed to Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, the sex offender wrote that Trump was the “dog that hasn’t barked” and had “spent hours at my house” with an unnamed victim.
The committee also published two email exchanges between Epstein and the author Michael Wolff.
In one 2019 email, Epstein said of Trump: “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
The publication of the emails threatens to reignite a bipartisan furore over the US president’s alleged links to Epstein. Trump has vehemently denied any involvement in the disgraced financier’s crimes.
The president has said he was friends with Epstein for 15 years, but added that the two had a falling out more than two decades ago.
The Democrats’ publication of the correspondence comes as members of Congress anticipate a vote in the House of Representatives in the coming weeks to call on the administration to release its files on the Epstein case.
Both the White House and the Congressional Republican leadership have sought to prevent the issue from coming to the House floor.
In September, the Democrats on the House oversight committee published a lewd birthday message that Trump allegedly sent to Epstein more than 20 years ago.
The White House swiftly denied the letter came from Trump, saying the signature did not match that of the president.
Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges, told US deputy attorney-general Todd Blanche in July that she had “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way”.
However, in the emails released on Wednesday, Maxwell responds to Epstein’s remark about Trump having spent hours with a victim by saying: “I have been thinking about that.”
“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,” said Robert Garcia, the senior Democrat on the committee.
“The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately,” he added.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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