Epstein email says Trump 'knew about the girls' as White House calls its
release a Democratic smear
[November 13, 2025]
By MICHAEL R. SISAK and ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein wrote in a 2019 email to a journalist
that Donald Trump “knew about the girls,” according to documents made
public Wednesday, but what he knew — and whether it pertained to the sex
offender’s crimes — is unclear. The White House quickly accused
Democrats of selectively leaking the emails to smear the president.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released three emails
referencing Trump, including one Epstein wrote in 2011 in which he told
confidant Ghislaine Maxwell that Trump had “spent hours” at Epstein’s
house with a sex trafficking victim.
The disclosures seemed designed to raise new questions about Trump’s
friendship with Epstein and about what knowledge he may have had
regarding what prosecutors call a yearslong effort by Epstein to exploit
underage girls. The Republican businessman-turned-politician has
consistently denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said he
ended their relationship years ago.
Trump did not take questions from reporters Wednesday, even after
inviting them into the Oval Office to watch him sign legislation ending
the government shutdown.
The version of the 2011 email released by the Democrats redacted the
name of the victim, but Republicans on the committee later said it was
Virginia Giuffre, who accused Epstein of arranging for her to have
sexual encounters with a number of his rich and powerful friends.
Epstein took his own life in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting
trial on federal charges.
The emails made public Wednesday are part of a batch of 23,000 documents
provided by Epstein’s estate to the Oversight Committee.
Giuffre said Trump ‘couldn’t have been friendlier'
Giuffre, who died earlier this year, long insisted that Trump was not
among the men who had victimized her.
In a court deposition, she said under oath that she didn’t believe Trump
had any knowledge of Epstein’s misconduct with underage girls. And in
her recently released memoir, she described meeting Trump only once,
when she worked as a spa attendant at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach,
Florida, and did not accuse him of wrongdoing.
Giuffre wrote that she was introduced to Trump by her father, who also
worked at the club. She described Trump as friendly and said he offered
to help her get babysitting jobs with parents at the club.
Trump “couldn’t have been friendlier,” Giuffre wrote.
Other members of Epstein’s household staff also said in sworn
depositions that, while Trump did stop by Epstein’s house, they didn’t
see him engage in any inappropriate conduct.
Republicans says emails released to tarnish Trump
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Democrats “selectively
leaked emails” to “create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”
Trump, writing on his Truth Social platform, said 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 government shutdown
“and so many other subjects.”
“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!” Trump wrote.
In July, Trump said he had banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because his
one-time friend was “taking people who worked for me,” including Giuffre.
The women, he said, were “taken out of the spa, hired by him — in other
words, gone.”
“I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people,’” Trump told
reporters. Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein,
the president demurred but then said Epstein “stole her.”
Shortly after Democrats released the Trump-related emails, committee
Republicans countered by disclosing what they said was an additional
20,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate. Among them were a trove
of emails written over several years by Epstein, including many where he
commented — often unfavorably — on Trump's rise in politics and
corresponded with journalists.
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President Donald Trump speaks before signing the funding bill to
reopen the government, in the Oval Office of the White House,
Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Emails revive questions about Trump’s relationship with Epstein
The release resurfaces a storyline that had shadowed Trump's
presidency during the summer when the FBI and the Justice Department
abruptly announced that they would not be releasing additional
documents that investigators had spent weeks examining,
disappointing conspiracy theorists and online sleuths who had
expected to see new revelations.
In one 2019 email to journalist Michael Wolff, who has written
extensively about Trump, Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew
about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
In an April 2, 2011, email to Maxwell, a former Epstein girlfriend
now imprisoned for conspiring to engage in sex trafficking, Epstein
wrote, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is
Trump. Virginia spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never
once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there.”
Maxwell replied the same day: “I have been thinking about that.”
Leavitt said the person referenced in the emails is Giuffre, who had
accused Britain’s then-Prince Andrew and other influential men of
sexually exploiting her as a teenager and who died by suicide in
April. Andrew, who recently was stripped of his titles and evicted
from his royal residence by King Charles III after weeks of pressure
to act over his relationship with Epstein, has rejected Giuffre’s
allegations and said he didn’t recall meeting her.
It wasn't clear what Epstein meant by saying that Trump was a dog
that “hadn't barked,” but both he and Maxwell in other
correspondence accused Giuffre of fabricating stories about her
supposed sexual interactions with famous men.
Leavitt said in a statement that Giuffre had “repeatedly said
President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and
‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited
interactions.”
“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,” the statement said. “These stories are nothing
more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s
historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees
right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government
opening back up again.”
Messages seeking comment were left with Wolff, Maxwell attorney
David Markus and representatives for Giuffre’s family.
Maxwell's interview with the Justice Department
Maxwell, interviewed in July by the Justice Department’s
second-in-command, repeatedly denied witnessing any sexually
inappropriate interactions involving Trump.
“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,”
Maxwell told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, according to a
transcript of the interview. “I never witnessed the President in any
inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never
inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was
a gentleman in all respects.”
Giuffre came forward publicly after an initial investigation ended
in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal
to avoid federal prosecution by pleading guilty instead to
relatively minor state-level charges of soliciting prostitution. He
was released in 2009.
In subsequent lawsuits, Giuffre said she was a teenage spa attendant
at Mar-a-Lago when she was approached in 2000 by Maxwell.
Lawyers for Maxwell, a British socialite, have argued that she never
should have been tried or convicted for her role in luring teenage
girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. She is serving a 20-year
prison term, though she was moved from a low-security federal prison
in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas after the
Blanche interview.
___
Sisak reported from New York.
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