What you need to know
A trove of documents about Jeffrey Epstein released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, Nov. 12, includes one in which the convicted sex offender questions Donald Trump’s mental acuity.
Republican lawmakers on the committee shared access to about 20,000 pages of documents they received from the Epstein Foundation. This major release came after Democrats on the committee shared three specific email conversations from the files earlier in the day.
“Democrats whine about ‘file release’ but cherry-pick when it comes to preparing files to generate clickbait,” a Republican member of the House Oversight Committee wrote of X, sharing a link to the document dump and writing, “You have a right to the full truth.”
The three communications released by Democrats focused on the 79-year-old Trump’s relationship with Epstein, but the larger release also mentioned him in several other emails.
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Epstein, a former friend of Trump, often spoke negatively about the president, questioning his cognitive abilities and even calling him “border on psychopathic.”
Documents reviewed by CNN shed light on the men’s positions as Trump’s political career took off.
In 2015, Epstein allegedly told a New York Times reporter, “I have pictures (sic) of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.” He also claimed to the reporter that he “gave” his 20-year-old girlfriend of two years to President Trump in 1993.
Trump turned 49 in June 1995, when Epstein claimed he was dating a then-22-year-old woman.
Trump was mentioned in another email between Epstein and a New York Times reporter shortly after Trump took office in January 2017. According to CNN, the exchange was related to the president’s then-controversial Muslim ban.
“It helps that he appears to be keeping his word, but it matters to Putin and North Korea. As you are aware, North Korea has not launched the missiles it promised would not happen. (Former President Barack Obama) was never able to do that,” he wrote.
“That being said, I said Donald is crazy,” he continued.
The following year, Epstein questioned whether Trump was showing signs of “early dementia,” quoting portions of Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
In an email exchange, a New York Times reporter told Epstein that the president “looked/sounded increasingly agitated,” to which Epstein responded, “What Donald said was definitely stupid. … Early dementia?”
On March 24, 2018, Epstein argued with Kathryn Remler, a former adviser to President Obama, about a Daily Beast article that questioned whether President Trump was headed for a “mental breakdown.” When Ruemmler said the article “doesn’t inspire confidence,” Epstein replied, “But — it’s accurate.”
A few months later, on August 23, Epstein allegedly sent an email to Lemmler regarding the hush money President Trump paid to Stormy Daniels.
“Look, I know how dirty Donald is,” Epstein claimed during the exchange.
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Later, on December 22, 2018, he insulted Trump in an email to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, saying, “Trump is on the verge of sanity.”
CNN noted that it was not clear what prompted the insult.
That same month, he referred to Trump for the second time as “bordering on insane” in an exchange with attorney Reed Weingarten. This time, Epstein claimed that his statements were “corroborated by certain people involved.”
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In the first email released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, Epstein, an accused and convicted sex offender, claimed that Trump “knew about the girls.”
The email, sent to journalist and author Michael Wolff on January 31, 2019, appears to be in reference to allegations that Epstein was kicked out of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Mr. Trump said he asked me to resign. He was never a congressman. …Of course he knew about the girls because he asked Ghislaine to stop,” she wrote.
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On November 12, the White House addressed the original three emails with a statement from Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt. In it, she accused House Democrats of pushing a “hoax” to distract from President Trump’s “historic accomplishments.”
“The ‘unnamed victim’ referred to in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, and President Trump has not engaged in any wrongdoing and has repeatedly stated that he was ‘never friendlier’ to her during their limited interactions,” Leavitt, 28, said.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for making female employees, including Giuffre, uncomfortable,” she added.
On Thursday, Nov. 13, White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a second statement to PEOPLE, saying, “These emails prove literally nothing. The liberal media is hell-bent on using this Democratic distraction to talk about anything other than their crushing defeat of President Trump in the government shutdown fight. We will not be distracted, and the entire administration will continue to deliver on the promises the president elected us to make, including making America affordable again.”
The data dump comes as the public and Congress continue to demand the release of the Epstein files.
Epstein, who died by suicide in his cell at New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019, pleaded not guilty in July 2019 to one count of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to sex traffick a minor.
The so-called Epstein files contain documents related to his criminal case, and Trump campaigned for their release. However, he later backtracked and called the file a “hoax” on Truth Social.
