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On Wednesday, Nov. 12, the House Oversight Committee released thousands of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, just hours before a House vote aimed at ending the government shutdown. These documents included private emails and texts that were sent starting around the time Epstein completed his 2009 Florida sentence and continued until the month before his sex trafficking conviction in 2019.
Epstein’s network included a wide range of individuals, from liberal academic Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump. Trump was explicitly mentioned in several documents following his alleged falling out with Epstein. The emails suggest that Trump “knew about the girls,” a claim he has denied for years. Epstein described Trump as the “worst negotiator in human history,” “borderline insane,” and referred to him in a 2011 email as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”
In an April 2, 2011, email to Epstein’s longtime friend Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein claimed that Trump spent hours at his house with a woman and “he has never once been mentioned. Police chief. Etc. I’m 75% there.” The House Oversight Committee identified the woman as Virginia Giuffre.
Former Prince Andrew, who lost his royal title after previous revelations about his ties to Epstein, was mentioned in a different 2011 email that also linked him to Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre, a prominent victim of Epstein, tragically died by suicide earlier this year. In 2011, Giuffre seemed to implicate Trump in Epstein’s sex trafficking; however, she recanted that claim in 2015, stating that she did not recall “ever seeing Trump at Epstein’s home or seeing Trump and Epstein together in the same place.”
Trump told ABC that the files are a “hoax” and accused House Democrats of “selectively leaking emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative.” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on Wednesday that the emails “prove absolutely nothing” and reiterated that Trump “did nothing wrong.” In September, a sexually suggestive drawing and note, purportedly bearing Trump’s signature and sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday, were released, though Trump denied creating the card.
Trump suggested that the release of these documents was an attempt by House Democrats to “deflect attention from how badly they’ve handled the shutdown and many other issues.”
Since the vote, a group of Republicans has joined the predominantly Democrat-led committee, aiming to expand the investigation to include other political figures tied to Epstein. Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the oversight panel, told the New York Times, “There are a lot of prominent people who were associated with Epstein. Now, whether they did anything wrong or not, that’s what we’re investigating.” Notably, it was Republicans who identified Virginia Giuffre as the unnamed victim in the Epstein emails.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is calling lawmakers back into session after initially refusing to convene during the shutdown. In addition to addressing backlog legislative demands, a vote is expected on whether to urge the Justice Department to quickly release all its Epstein-related files.
