- Democrats release emails from Epstein, including one in which he said Trump 'knew about the girls'
- Trump says disclosure attempt to divert attention from shutdown
- Democrats say emails raise new questions about relationship between Trump and Epstein
House Democrats have released emails which they said raised new questions about President Donald Trump's relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and how much he knew about his abuse of underage girls - a disclosure Trump blasted as an attempt to divert attention from the government shutdown.
The Democrats released messages between Epstein and author Michael Wolff and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on charges related to her role in facilitating Epstein's sex trafficking.
In one 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein wrote that Trump "knew about the girls," though it was not clear what that phrase meant.
The disclosure came on the day a new Democratic member is scheduled to be sworn into the House, a move expected to be a tipping point in a campaign to force a vote on releasing all non-classified files related to Epstein, reigniting interest in a case that has been a major political headache for Trump.
The batch of emails includes a 2011 message to Maxwell in which Epstein described Trump as "that dog that hasn't barked," adding that Trump had "spent hours at my house" with one of his victims, whose name is redacted.
Trump has vehemently and consistently denied knowing about Epstein's sex trafficking. He has said that he and Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, were once friends before having a falling out.
Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of releasing the emails to divert attention from the record 43-day shutdown of the federal government, even as public polling suggests more Americans blame Republicans for the standoff.
"The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown, and so many other subjects," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday afternoon.
At an earlier briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of redacting the victim's name in the released emails because the victim was Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had called Trump friendly without accusing him of any wrongdoing in her posthumous memoir.
"These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong." Leavitt said.
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 the Epstein case.
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.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie, who has been working with Democrats to compel release of the so-called "Epstein files," wrote on X that there were now enough signatures for the petition, paving the way for a floor vote after the Thanksgiving break at the end of the month.
However, Trump and other administration officials have reached out to Republican lawmakers Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to try and get them to remove their names from the petition, according to reporting by Axios and other media outlets.
The offices of Boebert and Mace have not responded to requests for comment.
The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Representative Robert Garcia, called on the Justice Department to fully release the Epstein files to the public, accusing Trump of trying to prevent their disclosure.
"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.
