Trump says Democrats released Epstein emails to ‘deflect’ from performance during government shutdown
In a post on Truth Social, the president has addressed the batch of emails released by House Democrats on the oversight committee.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown,” Trump wrote. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
Key events
My colleague Adam Gabbatt has put together a helpful timeline of some of the most significant developments in the Epstein saga that continues to dog the administration. Starting in 2019, when Epstein was charged with federal sex-trafficking crimes, and taking us up to the batch of Epstein’s emails released today that suggest Trump knew about the late financier’s conduct.
Trump says Democrats released Epstein emails to ‘deflect’ from performance during government shutdown
In a post on Truth Social, the president has addressed the batch of emails released by House Democrats on the oversight committee.
“The Democrats are trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown,” Trump wrote. “There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our Country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!”
Republicans ‘own the mess’ in the United States, says top House Democrat
Ahead of the House preparing to vote on a Senate-passed bill to reopen the government, Democrats in the lower chamber held a press conference on the steps of the Capitol.
“Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency,” said the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries. “They own the mess that has been created in the United States of America.”
Today’s legislation includes none of the healthcare provisions that Democrats made a centerpiece of their fight with the GOP when the government shut down. After some senators in the Democratic caucus broke ranks and voted to pass the bill, much of the party slammed their decision.
Today, Jeffries offered more fighting words:
We work for the American people as we stand on the Capitol steps, ready to continue this battle on the House floor, a battle that we waged week after week after week, and that will continue regardless of the outcome … We’ll continue to fight to stand up for the Affordable Care Act and an extension of the tax credits. We’ll continue to fight for your hospitals. We’ll continue to fight for your nursing homes.
Largest union representing federal workers urges House to pass funding bill to reopen government
As the House prepares to vote on a funding bill that would end the longest government shutdown on record, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) has sent a letter to lawmakers in the lower chamber urging them to pass the legislation.
“Passing this bill will reopen the government and allow federal employees to return to the work of serving the American people. It will ensure safety and security for our vital transportation systems,” wrote Daniel Horowitz, legislative director of the largest union representing federal workers.
The AFGE argues that Senate-passed resolution includes several provisions beneficial for civil servants affected by the shutdown. This includes ensuring back pay to furloughed workers, reinstating those terminated from their positions by wide-scale reductions in force when the government shuttered, and preventing further layoffs while the continuing resolution keeps agencies open through January.
Leavitt said that she hadn’t spoken to the president about whether he believes that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the former prince, should sit for an interview with congressional lawmakers on the House oversight committee, after they requested his cooperation in their ongoing investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
‘These emails prove absolutely nothing,’ White House press secretary says of new batch of Epstein emails
Responding to question about the validity of the emails released by House oversight Democrats, Leavitt responded plainly. “These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong,” the press secretary said. “Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep.”
Leavitt repeated Republicans’ statements identifying the redacted name in the batch of emails as Virginia Giuffre. “She maintained that there was nothing inappropriate she ever witnessed, that president Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her,” Leavitt reiterated, of the outspoken victim of Epstein’s abuse, who died by suicide earlier this year.
Leavitt is spending most of her opening remarks blaming Democrats for the longest shutdown on record, as the House prepares to vote on a bill to reopen the government.
“The Democrats’ weakness and their unwillingness to buck the fringe members of their party dragged this harmful shutdown on for seven weeks and inflicted massive pain on to the American public,” she said.
White House briefing begins, as emails from Jeffrey Epstein allege that Trump ‘spent hours’ at late sex-offender’s home
The White House briefing has begun, and we’ll bring you the latest from Karoline Leavitt as she’ll face questions from reporters.
Dominating the news of the day: a small batch of emails released by House Democrats on the oversight committee in which the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein said that Donald Trump “spent hours” at his home in an email to Ghislaine Maxwell – the late sex offender’s accomplice.
Andrew told Epstein and Maxwell ‘I can’t take any more of this’, email chain reveals
In one of the email chains in the larger tranche released by the House oversight committee, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew) appeared to tell Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, “I can’t take any more of this,” in March 2011 after a newspaper said they would be running a story about the trio.
In the email chain, Maxwell was initially forwarded the press inquiry from the Mail on Sunday from somebody named Mark Cohen, who told her: “FYI, following up on my email of this morning. Again, I have no intention of responding unless you direct otherwise.”
After the email was forwarded from Maxwell to Epstein, and then from Epstein to somebody listed as “The Duke” on 4 March 2011, Andrew appears to respond: “What? I don’t know any of this. How are you responding?”
Epstein responds: “Just got it two minutes ago. I’ve asked g [sic] lawyers to send a letter. Not sure … it’s so salcisous [sic] and ridiculous, im [sic] not sure how to respond, the only person she didn’t have sex with was Elvis.”
Andrew then appears to reply to Epstein, saying:
Please make sure that every statement or legal letter states clearly that I am NOT involved and that I knew and know NOTHING about any of these allegations. I can’t take any more of this my end.
In the earlier batch of emails released by the House oversight committee is an email from Jeffrey Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell from April 2011 in which he describes Donald Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked” and says that a victim – whose name is redacted – “spent hours at my house with him”.
Epstein’s email reads:
I want you to realise that the dog that hasn’t barked is Trump. [Redacted victim’s name] spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. i’m 75% there.
The White House has said in a statement that the unnamed victim was Virginia Giuffre and that she repeatedly said Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing.
Peter Mandelson urged Jeffrey Epstein not to agree to BBC interview, emails suggest
As we continue to trawl through the 20,000 pages of documents released by the House oversight committee, which contains a mixture of emails, articles and documents, the BBC highlights an email chain from 2011 that shows Peter Mandelson urging Epstein not to do a BBC interview.
Mandelson was until recently the UK’s ambassador to the US, but was sacked over his friendship with the convicted paedophile.
One email dates from March 2011, and is a request from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to Epstein’s attorney Jack Goldberger for an interview with Epstein about “stories which are circulating, however inaccurately, about both him and Prince Andrew, the Duke of York”.
Goldberger forwards the email on to Epstein, who forwards it on to Mandelson. “No!!” replies Mandelson.
Mandelson was sacked as ambassador in September after emails were published by the Sun newspaper in which Mandelson suggested to Epstein that his 2008 conviction for soliciting a child for prostitution was wrongful and should be challenged.
The earlier batch of emails that House Democrats released, from Jeffrey Epstein to writer Michael Wolff, seem to refute the president’s claim that he kicked Epstein out of his Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote. “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
House oversight committee releases 20,000 pages of documents from Epstein estate
The House oversight committee has released another tranche of records from the Epstein estate – around 20,000 pages of documents.
We’ll bring you more as we parse through them. But on first glance they include several emails, financial disclosures, and even scans from James Patterson’s book on Epstein, Filthy Rich.
White House says new batch of Epstein emails is part of ‘fake narrative’ in an attempt to ‘smear’ Donald Trump
In response to the latest batch of emails released by House Democrats on the oversight committee, the White House said this was an attempt to “to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump”.
In a statement, press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed “the ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever. However, the emails redacted the name of the victim when they were released, and Leavitt didn’t expand on her reasoning.
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre. These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments,” she added. “Any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”
Donald Trump has repeated a request to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, for a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases.
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases. No rulings have been delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.
In a letter released by Herzog’s office on Wednesday, Trump says he is writing to the president at a “historic time, as we have, together, just secured peace that has been sought for at least 3,000 years”.
“I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a formidable and decisive War Time Prime Minister … While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System … I believe that this ’case’ against Bibi … is political, unjustified prosecution,” he writes.
Trump has already suggested a presidential pardon for Netanyahu in a series of social media posts and a speech to the Israeli parliament last month. Despite the largely ceremonial role of the Israeli presidency, Herzog has the authority to pardon convicted criminals under unusual circumstances.
Netanyahu’s trials, which began in 2020, have not yet concluded, and he has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
For his part, Donald Trump has routinely denied having any involvement with Epstein’s conduct. He has said that he was once friendly with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in federal prison in 2019. But the pair had a falling out, after Epstein tried to hire people away from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
The president has also called the push for further transparency around the Epstein case as a “hoax”.
In response to the latest batch of emails from released by House Democrats, congressman Ro Khanna told the Guardian that this is “exactly why” he’s working with Republican representative Thomas Massie to force a House floor vote on the full release of the Epstein files. “The public deserves transparency and the survivors deserve justice,” he said.
Khanna also serves on the oversight committee, who published the Epstein’s emails today.
In the midst of all of this, a whistleblower also revealed that Ghislaine Maxwell – Epstein’s long time companion and co-conspirator – is seeking a commutation from Donald Trump, according to Democrats on the House judiciary committee.
Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, and was recently transferred to a minimum security prison in Texas.
“You should not grant any form of clemency to this convicted and unrepentant sex offender,” said the committee’s ranking member, congressman Jamie Raskin, in a letter to the president. A reminder that last month, the supreme court rejected Maxwell’s appeal to overturn her criminal conviction.
Per my last post, it’s important to note that speaker Johnson’s decision to delay Grijalva’s swearing-in has only fueled Democrats to suggest that the top House Republican is avoiding the bipartisan push to release the Epstein records.
“Republicans are running a pedophile protection program, they are intentionally hiding the Jeffrey Epstein files,” said Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, on Tuesday. He added to the chorus of accusations that the only reason Grijalva has yet to become an official member of Congress, is because GOP lawmakers are afraid that her signature would set the discharge petition in motion.
A reminder, that this was co-sponsored by Thomas Massie, a Republican representative from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat. It’s even seen support from Maga firebrands like congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace. All of whom committed their signatures to the measure.
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