Washington, DC — More than 20,000 emails written by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein were published on Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, including messages in which he describes president Donald Trump as “dirty,” “borderline insane” and untrustworthy.
In one email, Epstein claims Mr Trump “spent hours at my house” with a woman who later accused Epstein of sexually abusing and trafficking her as a teenager. The correspondence, first highlighted by Democrats and then posted in full by Republicans, spans exchanges with friends, business contacts and the author Michael Wolff, who advised Epstein on media strategy.
The White House dismissed the release. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the emails a “clear distraction,” while Mr Trump labelled them a “hoax” on social media. Allies noted that the two men fell out years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest.
Publication of the cache intensified a partisan stand-off over separate Justice Department files on Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. A bipartisan group had secured enough signatures to force a floor vote on a resolution demanding those files within 30 days. Speaker Mike Johnson, who had blocked the measure, said he would allow the vote next week after newly sworn-in Democrat Adelita Grijalva of Arizona supplied the final signature.
Republican leaders released the Epstein emails in full, arguing that transparency was preferable to selective leaks. Democrats countered that the size of the dump was designed to dilute focus on passages that mention Mr Trump.
Administration officials stepped up pressure on Republican signatories. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado was summoned to the White House Situation Room, and Mr Trump personally called Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, urging her to withdraw her support. Ms Mace refused.
Other emails are routine. In one, a broker approaches Epstein about a Boeing 727 transaction, noting prior work for Mr Trump. Throughout the messages, Wolff encourages Epstein to criticise Mr Trump publicly, writing in March 2016 that “becoming an anti-Trump voice gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don’t have now.”