A U.S. House Committee released 23,000 documents related to the Epstein files on Wednesday afternoon — a large number of them correspondence between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his high-powered associates, as well as journalists.
It follows the three emails, in which Epstein mentioned U.S. President Donald Trump, made public by Democrats.
The Republicans’ response to the email release, which included a handful of exchanges written by Epstein claiming that Trump “knew about the girls” and referring to him as the “dog that hasn’t barked,” was to unveil a heap of documents to accuse the Democrats of publicizing select messages to make Trump look bad.
On Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused the Democrats of running “another distraction campaign.”
Here are the key takeaways from the estate files released by the Republicans.
Epstein and Mar-a-Lago
Trump and Epstein had close business ties as well as a personal friendship, but at some point, they fell out — before underage girls started to come forward to accuse Epstein of sexual abuse.
As shown in the documents, journalists sometimes reached out to Epstein, perhaps in an attempt to gain information on the allegations. One of those writers was Michael Wolff, who has written extensively about Trump. In a 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein mentioned that one of his best-known accusers, Virginia Giuffre, had worked at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
“She was the one who accused Prince Andrew,” Epstein wrote.
Giuffre died by suicide in April, months before the release of her memoir, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.
In it, she says she first encountered Epstein while working as a receptionist at the spa at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., after Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, approached her and invited her to massage Epstein.
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Trump has long claimed that he banned Epstein from coming to Mar-a-Lago.
In July, White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement: “The fact is that the President kicked him out of his club for being a creep.”
Epstein said in an email to Wolff that Trump hadn’t asked him to resign from the club because he hadn’t been a member.
“Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” Epstein added.
Before her death, Giuffre said she only met Trump once and that he was not among the people who abused her. She didn’t think Trump knew of Epstein’s misconduct with underage girls. She did claim to have been forced to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor by Epstein and Maxwell in 2001, when she was 17 years old.
Leavitt said Democrats had leaked select emails to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Bill Clinton appear in the documents
Giuffre’s allegations against the former prince eventually cost Andrew — now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor — his official titles and his royal residence near Windsor Castle.
In 2011, Epstein emailed a reporter, attacking Giuffre’s credibility.
“Yes she was on my plane, and yes she had her picture taken with Andrew as many of my employees have,” Epstein wrote, before arguing that “this girl is a total liar.”
A photo showing Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and Virginia Giuffre together.
U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Epstein wrote that he’d ask if Andrew’s “people” would co-operate with the reporter for a story.
Andrew has always denied Giuffre’s allegations.
In other emails, Epstein proposed possible responses or explanations for Giuffre’s allegations, which included an account of a meeting with former president Bill Clinton on Epstein’s island in the Caribbean.
“Presidents at dinner on caribean islands. ( clinton was never ever there, easy to confirm ). Sharing a bath with a Prince ( bathtub too small even for one adult ). sex slave being paid thousands of dollars. ( while at the exact same time, she was working as a hostess in a burger bar ),” Epstein wrote.
Clinton confirmed that he had flown on Epstein’s private jet but said through a spokesperson that he did not know about Epstein’s sexual crimes.
The former president has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein’s accusers, including Giuffre.
Trump stated in July that he had never visited Epstein’s private island or been on his plane and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
“Nobody ever talks about that. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn’t want to go to this island,” he said.
Trump appeared with Epstein at social events in the 1990s and early 2000s. His name, along with many other high-profile individuals, appeared multiple times on flight logs for Epstein’s private plane in the 1990s.
Epstein communicated with the press
Many of the documents released by Republicans were email exchanges between Epstein and journalists with whom he had long-standing relationships, or who solicited his insights on financial markets and Trump.
He was asked, typically off the record, to weigh in on everything from the president’s relationships with foreign leaders to the impact of oil prices on wealthy families in Saudi Arabia.
Epstein offered to broker introductions between journalists and powerful people numerous times. He also contested the sexual misconduct accusations made against him.
In a 2016 email to a reporter, Epstein denied ever spending time with Clinton or former vice-president Al Gore on his island.
“You can also add, fresh political juice by stating that Clinton was never on the island,” Epstein wrote. “I never met Al Gore. No diners on the island either, no matter how much detail has been in the press.”
What comes next: a vote to release the Epstein files in full
On Wednesday, a petition filed in the House of Representatives to force a vote that would compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files received its final signature, triggering the action. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson confirmed that the vote would take place next week.
The final signature was provided by Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., soon after she was sworn in as a House member.
— With files from The Associated Press and Global News staff