House Democrats shifted media attention back to the Jeffrey Epstein files on Wednesday, with the release of a series of emails claiming that Donald Trump had more knowledge of the convicted sex offender’s conduct.
In one of the emails released, Epstein wrote to Ghislaine Maxwell on April 2, 2011: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. Police chief. etc. im 75 % there.”
Maxwell replied, “I have been thinking about that…”
In another email, from Jan. 31, 2019, Epstein wrote to journalist Michael Wolff, “[Victim] mara lago. [identifier]. Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop”
CNN and MSNBC gave extensive coverage to the email release this morning, Fox News not so much.
But Democrats appear to have timed the release to the pending swearing in of a newly elected House member, Democrat Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. She will provide the crucial 218th signature on a petition to force a vote on the release of the Epstein files. House Speaker Mike Johnson has declined to seat her while the House has been out of session during the shutdown, but representatives are scheduled to vote later today on a resolution to reopen the government.
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Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said 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.”
Republicans on the Oversight Committee released a statement saying, “Democrats whine about ‘releasing the files,’ but they only cherry-pick when they have them to generate clickbait.”
The GOP said that the redacted name of the victim was Virginia Giuffre. Per CNN, she said in a 2016 deposition that she “never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein? I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself, so I don’t know.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, “The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
Leavitt also said that the ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in the emails is 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.”
Trump has acknowledged his relationship with Epstein but said that he fell out of favor.
“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. These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”
Another email relessed on Wednesday, from Dec. 16, 2015, is an exchange between Wolff and Epstein over Trump’s pending appearance on CNN.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote.
Epstein replied, “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”
Wolff 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.”
The White House also released a lengthy list of media articles calling into question Wolff’s accuracy and credibility.
