The cache of emails to and from Jeffrey Epstein have certainly been revealing, especially in regard to Epstein’s years-long communications with various journalists, political operatives and titans of industry. There are so many details and so many emails, it does feel like some of the macro story is missing: that Epstein followed Trump’s real estate career, finances and political ascent with a great deal of interest. I kind of believe that Trump stopped speaking to Epstein at some point circa 2006-07, although I also think they still communicated through back channels and third parties here and there. But even after their falling out, Epstein was sort of obsessed with Trump and pulling strings around Trump. Epstein also liked to brag about how he had enough on Trump to bring him down. Epstein died in custody less than a year after he bragged about that.
President Trump’s long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein came to an apparent end in the mid-2000s. But Mr. Epstein remained intently focused on Mr. Trump for years afterward, seeking to exploit the remnants of their relationship up until his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019. In more than 20,000 pages of Mr. Epstein’s typo-strewn emails and other messages released by a congressional committee on Wednesday, Mr. Epstein insulted Mr. Trump and hinted that he had damaging information on him.
By turns gossipy, scathing and scheming, the messages show influential people pressing Mr. Epstein for insight into Mr. Trump, and Mr. Epstein casting himself as the ultimate Trump translator, someone who knew him intimately and was “the one able to take him down.”
The basic contours of their relationship have long been known. Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were friends in the 1980s and 1990s, attending social events in New York or Florida together. One of Mr. Epstein’s former girlfriends has accused Mr. Trump of groping her, an allegation that Mr. Trump has denied. Mr. Trump has said that he cut ties with Mr. Epstein after his associates recruited teenage girls from Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
But the new emails show that Mr. Epstein was closely following Mr. Trump’s business decisions and political fortunes. In April 2011, Mr. Epstein wrote to his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was later convicted of helping orchestrate Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation, that Mr. Trump was the “dog that hasn’t barked.” One of Mr. Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, had recently gone public about her experiences with Mr. Epstein — telling a British tabloid that he had abused her and trafficked her to other men, and providing the outlet with a now famous photo of herself, Prince Andrew and Ms. Maxwell.
Mr. Epstein’s email said that Ms. Giuffre had “spent hours at my house with him” — Mr. Trump — yet Mr. Trump “has never once been mentioned.” Ms. Giuffre said in a 2016 deposition that Mr. Trump never had sex with her or even flirted with her.
As Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign gained traction in December 2015, Mr. Epstein asked Landon Thomas Jr., then a New York Times reporter, “would you like photso of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen”? It is unclear whether Mr. Epstein actually possessed such photos. Mr. Thomas, who has not worked at The Times since 2019, said Mr. Epstein never provided them. Mr. Epstein also told him about a time when he said Mr. Trump was “so focused” on watching young women in a swimming pool that he bumped into a door, “leaving his nose print on the glass.”
Mr. Epstein repeatedly insulted Mr. Trump. In a January 2018 email to Mr. Wolff, Mr. Epstein referred to the president as “dopey donald” and “demented donald,” saying that his finances were “all a sham.”
By late 2018, the authorities were closing in on Mr. Epstein. A series of articles in The Miami Herald showed that Mr. Trump’s labor secretary had signed off on Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal. The Herald series prompted the Justice Department to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation into Mr. Epstein. That December, Mr. Epstein was texting with an unidentified acquaintance, who wrote that “they’re really just trying to take down Trump and doing whatever they can to do that…!”
“its wild,” Mr. Epstein replied. “because i am the one able to take him down.”
Multiple things can be true at once: Epstein was fascinated by Trump and obsessively followed Trump’s comings and goings, bad-mouthing Trump at every turn; AND Epstein held kompromat on Trump which he seemingly shared with foreign governments and hinted at with allies and journalists. I’m going back and forth about the extent of the kompromat though – it feels like if Epstein had the photos and videos, he would have said that to a third party, he would have bragged about it specifically at some point. But hey, these emails are not comprehensive, and it’s more than possible that there is more of a “smoking gun” elsewhere, in another email cache or within the larger Epstein files. I just don’t think “Trump left a nose print on the glass” is all there is.
Also: do we know for sure that the redacted victim who allegedly spent “hours” with Trump inside Epstein’s house was Virginia?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Getty, Cover Images.
