"Nobody ever mentioned it" Explosive Epstein emails put Trump under pressure - what did he really know?
Donald Trump is once again coming under pressure in the Epstein scandal. New emails accuse the president of being more closely involved in the abuse network than he admits.
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- New emails link Donald Trump more closely to Jeffrey Epstein.
- In the emails, Epstein claims Trump spent "hours" with a victim in his home.
- The revelations come shortly before a possible vote in the House of Representatives on the release of all government files on Epstein, which the White House has so far blocked.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives released new emails on Wednesday that link Donald Trump more closely to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. These suggest that President Donald Trump knew more about Epstein's abuse ring than previously admitted, as reported by numerous US media outlets.
In the emails, Epstein claims, among other things, that Trump spent "hours in my house" with one of his victims.
Trump denies any involvement in Epstein's sex trafficking network. He admits to having known Epstein in the 1990s, but speaks of a break in the early 2000s. After Epstein's death in custody in 2019, Trump declared that he had "not seen him in a long time" and considered him a "creep".
"Nobody ever mentioned it"
The emails now published date from the years following Epstein's controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida, in which he received a lenient sentence. One message went to his close confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, two others to the journalist Michael Wolff. In an email from 2011, Epstein wrote to Maxwell that Trump had spent a lot of time in his house - and "nobody ever mentioned it". Maxwell replied: "I have thought about it."
In another message from 2019, Epstein wrote to Wolff: "Of course he knew about the girls, he asked Ghislaine to stop." This email was written just a few months before Epstein's arrest over new abuse allegations.
"Emails raise serious questions"
The MPs see the documents as evidence that the then president may have been more closely involved in the scandal than he publicly admits. "These new emails raise serious questions - about what the White House is hiding and about the true relationship between Epstein and Trump," said Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia in a statement.
The release comes amid a heated debate over the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files, which have so far been denied full release.
Trump speaks of "political witch hunt"
Trump himself rejects the accusations as a "political witch hunt". He claims that Epstein poached staff at his Mar-a-Lago club and was therefore expelled. One of the women employed there was Virginia Giuffre, who later claimed that Maxwell had lured her into Epstein's sex ring when she was a minor.
In the 1990s, Trump and Epstein had both lived in Palm Beach and New York, moved in the same social circles and attended parties together. According to consistent reports, the relationship cooled in 2004 - allegedly after a dispute over a luxury villa in Florida.
A sensitive time
When Epstein wrote about Trump in 2011, he was primarily known as a reality TV star and real estate magnate. It was only years later that he rose to become a presidential candidate. The revelations now come at a time when the House of Representatives is set to vote on the full release of government documents relating to Epstein.
Democrats are hoping that the new emails will increase pressure on Republicans close to Trump. If Congress votes in favor of disclosure, the government would have to publish all internal documents relating to Epstein and Maxwell - a step that the White House has so far firmly rejected.
