In one of the emails, from 2011, Epstein writes to his companion Ghislaine Maxwell that “I want you to know that the dog that didn’t bark is Trump,” ABC News reports, adding that a potential victim spent “hours at my house with him.”
In an email from Epstein to author Michael Wolff in January 2019, he writes about Trump: "Of course he knew about the girls because he asked Ghislaine to stop."
Wolff was also involved in a third email conversation in 2015, during the Republican primary, when he wrote to Epstein warning that CNN “planned to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you.”
The names and other personal information of the alleged victims have been removed from the published messages.
Reviewed relationship
Trump has claimed that questions about his role in the case are a “hoax” by Democrats. Both he and Epstein lived in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, and were friends in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Trump's relationship with Epstein, who committed suicide while in prison in 2019, has come under scrutiny in recent years. The president has distanced himself from the convicted sex offender, calling him a "disgusting guy."
A total of three emails have been made public – out of at least 23,000 that the House of Representatives investigative committee (which reviews the effectiveness of federal agencies) is reviewing, according to US media.
Loud discussion
Whether all the material included in the Epstein investigation – hundreds of thousands of documents – should be made public has been hotly debated in the United States over the past year and is dividing Republicans.
Many within Trump's often politically disdainful Magar movement want it, as there are suspicions that powerful people appear in the material. During the election campaign, Donald Trump promised to make everything public, but in recent months the White House has swung.
One reason the emails are being released now is likely that Democrat Adelita Grijalva, who recently won a by-election in Arizona, is set to be sworn in as a member of the House of Representatives tonight. That means Democrats have the 218 votes needed to force a vote in the House on whether to release all of the Epstein material.
Tina Magnergård Bjers/TT
Background: The twists surrounding Jeffrey Epstein
TT
An investigation into businessman Jeffrey Epstein began in 2005 after a 14-year-old girl told police she had been molested by him at his home in Palm Beach, Florida. The investigation grew and in 2007 he was indicted in federal court.
After a plea deal with prosecutors, Epstein was sentenced to 18 months in prison for sex trafficking in 2008. He was released after 13 months.
The case received renewed attention in 2018 after a series of articles in the Miami Herald in which several women came forward and accused Epstein of sexual assault during the period 2001 to 2005.
In July 2019, Epstein was arrested at an airport in New Jersey. The new charges against him concerned the abuse of dozens of underage girls between 2002 and 2005. According to the prosecution, Epstein tried to buy the silence of witnesses with millions of dollars. Epstein denies the crime.
On August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell in Manhattan's New York City jail. He was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. It is believed he took his own life, but some question this.
A prominent plaintiff against Epstein was Virginia Giuffre, who died earlier this year. She claimed that Epstein’s convicted associate Ghislaine Maxwell discovered her at Donald Trump’s Florida spa when she was 17 and hired her as Epstein’s masseuse—his “sex slave.” Giuffre also accused Britain’s Prince Andrew of rape, which ended in an out-of-court settlement between the parties.
