Epstein emails say Trump 'knew about the girls'; new House Democrat pledges file release

By Nathan Layne and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -House Democrats on Wednesday released emails that they said raised new questions about President Donald Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein and how much he knew about Epstein's abuse of underage girls, while the swearing-in of a new Democrat kicked off a fresh fight in Congress over further disclosures.

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, a convicted sex offender, wrote that Trump "knew about the girls," though it was not clear what that phrase meant.

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.

The disclosure came on the day that Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva was sworn in by House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, seven weeks after she won a special election in Arizona. Her long-delayed induction should pave the way to compel a House vote to release all unclassified records related to Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.

"It's past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration," Grijalva said, adding she would sign a petition to release the files. The measure's sponsor, Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, told reporters that would give him the majority needed to force a vote.

'SPENT HOURS' AT EPSTEIN HOUSE

The batch of emails released earlier on Wednesday 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.

Later in the day, Republicans released a cache of 20,000 Epstein-related documents in which Trump's name surfaces frequently, though typically in the context of his political career or allegations of sexual behavior. In one exchange, Epstein refers to a 20-year-old girlfriend whom he "gave to Donald" in 1993, and talks about photos of "donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen," though it is not clear whether he is joking.

Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of releasing the emails to distract from the record 43-day shutdown of the government.

"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.

'TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG,' WHITE HOUSE SAYS

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 who 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.

Trump and other administration officials have reached out to Republican Representatives Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to try to get them to remove their names from the petition that would force a vote on releasing all of the files, according to reporting by Axios and other media outlets.

Boebert told reporters there was "no pressure" when she met with White House officials to discuss the matter on Wednesday, adding that she remained a supporter of the petition.

Mace, who has spoken publicly about her experience as a sexual assault survivor, is not removing her name from the petition "because of her personal story," spokesperson Sydney Long said.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Nathan Layne; additional reporting by David Morgan, Andy Sullivan, Jason Lange, Bo Erickson, Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland and Kat Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone, Noeleen Walder, Diane Craft and Leslie Adler)