Newly released correspondence alleges Trump ‘knew about the girls’

New York: Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told his close associate Ghislaine Maxwell that Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of his victims, and told a journalist that Trump “knew about the girls”, according to new documents released by Democrats in the US Congress.

The US president, who was friends with Epstein in the 1990s but says the pair fell out in the 2000s, has always emphatically denied knowledge of Epstein and Maxwell’s sex-trafficking operations.

The three emails released on Wednesday morning, US time, were selected by Democrats from a tranche supplied by Epstein’s estate to the House Oversight Committee under subpoena. All three are from after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008 under a plea deal.

In the first email, from April 2011, Epstein tells Maxwell: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. [REDACTED] spent hours at my house with him,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75% there.”

The second email, from December 2015, involves author and journalist Michael Wolff informing Epstein that CNN might be planning to ask him about his ties with Trump during a television interview. Trump was, at that time, seeking the Republican nomination for president.

Epstein replies: “if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”

Wolff then suggests that Epstein should “let him [Trump] 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,” Wolff says. “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.”

The third email, from 2019 – months before Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges – again involves correspondence from Epstein to Wolff.