An explosive set of new emails in the Jeffrey Epstein saga released Wednesday suggest President Donald Trump knew more than he’s claimed about the crimes of the dead sex offender, setting off a frenzy of renewed interest in what lay at the heart of their relationship and its ties to a vast network of powerful politicians, business leaders and media figures.
In the 23,000 emails released by a Congressional committee on Wednesday — coming shortly after the release of three emails about Trump and Epstein by House Democrats — were tantalizing indications that Epstein knew a great deal about Trump, and vice versa.
“You see, I know how dirty Donald is,” Epstein wrote in August 2018 to a top lawyer who served in the Obama administration.
In another email to a former New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr., Epstein wrote in 2015: “Would you like photos of Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?”
“That dog that hasn’t barked is Trump,” Epstein wrote in 2011. A redacted name of a victim “spent hours at my house with him…. he has never once been mentioned.”
Journalists spent the rest of Wednesday digging through the trove of emails, and putting together a clearer roadmap of Trump’s relationship to Epstein and a shocking number of power players, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, Trump adviser and ally Steve Bannon, publicist Peggy Siegel and Michael Wolff, author of four books on Trump.
As Congress moved Wednesday to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Democrats reignited the most durable, and potentially damaging, scandal of President Trump’s second term.
Trump has continually downplayed his relationship with Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes and committed suicide in jail in August 2019 while facing federal sex trafficking charges. But his administration has continually ducked lingering questions about what he knew, when and why.
The latest conflagration began with three emails, released by House Democrats, between Epstein, Wolff and Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence related to the former’s sex-trafficking. In one 2019 email, Epstein tells Wolff that Trump “knew about the girls,” and in another, from 2011, he described Trump to Maxwell as “that dog that hasn’t barked,” and claimed Trump “spent hours at my house” with an unnamed victim.
EPSTEIN BOMBSHELL: Newly released emails show Jeffrey Epstein told Ghislaine Maxwell that Donald Trump “spent hours at my house,” “knew about the girls,” and “that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.” pic.twitter.com/8OQtdfQe1g
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 12, 2025
Trump, who was friends with Epstein in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has repeatedly denied knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking, and on Wednesday, accused the Democrats of “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect o how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown.”
Dismissing the the Epstein scandal as a “hoax” reflects how far Trump and his MAGA base have shifted from once demanding transparency around the late financier, whose suicide fueled more questions and conspiracy theories. As a 2024 presidential candidate, Trump expressed an openness to declassifying the government’s Epstein files, and in February, his attorney general, Pam Bondi, gathered pro-Trump influencers at the White House for the release of “The Epstein Files,” which largely contained information already in the public domain. Amid calls over the summer to release all of the government’s files, Trump urged his supporters to “not waste time and energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
But Trump’s hope of moving on from Epstein collided Wednesday with two major developments: the release of that trove of emails and the long-delayed swearing-in for Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who provided the final signature needed to force a vote in the House to release all government records related to Epstein.
Republicans accused Democrats of cherry-picking three emails and subsequently released 20,000 more documents, which shed additional light not only on Epstein’s relationship to Trump, but also other prominent people.
Wolff, who has previously revealed having about 100 hours of recordings with Epstein, appears in a number of emails, at one point appearing to advise him on how to handle the media. On Dec. 15, 2015, Wolff alerted Epstein that CNN was planning to ask Trump about their relationship during a Republican debate. When Epstein asked if “we were able to craft an answer for him,” Wolff shot back: “I think you should let him hang himself.”
“If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency,” Wolff told Epstein. “You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.” In another email, just before the 2016 election, Wolff asked Epstein if he’d be willing “to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him.”
Wolff suggested on Instagram that “we’re getting close to the smoking gun” and that the most critical question now is “what is Donald Trump’s relationship to Jeffrey Epstein?” Wolff did not get into detail about his relationship with Epstein and did not respond to requests for comment.
The emails show that Epstein and Summers chatted frequently about everything from Trump — “borderline insane” is how Epstein described him in 2018 — to Summers’ dealings with a woman. A former president of Harvard University who worked in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, Summers also offered up this “insight” to Epstein: “I’m trying to figure out why American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard, but hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.”
Larry Summers seems like a solid guy, emailing Jeff Epstein with a casual note mocking women as stupid.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) November 12, 2025
Also lamenting that if you "hit on a few women 10 years ago you can't work at a network or think tank DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT"
This email was in 2017. pic.twitter.com/CUmkeRaDkb
The aforementioned exchanges take place years after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 on prostitution charges and served 13 months in prison. Summers has previously expressed regret for his contact with Epstein after his conviction.
The emails also show how Epstein was in contact with Ruemmler, who served as White House Counsel under Obama, and exchanges run the gamut from Ruemmler observing overweight people at a New Jersey turnpike rest stop to a discussion of a criminal case against former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, in which Epstein says, “I know how dirty Donald is.”
Jeffrey Epstein in 2018: "i know how dirty donald is." pic.twitter.com/JYUscFmjdW
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 12, 2025
Epstein also corresponded in 2015 with journalist Landon Thomas Jr., author of a 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein that included an infamous Trump quote: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
After discussing that article, Epstein asked the journalist, “Would you like photos of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen?”
Jeffrey Epstein: "would you like photos of donald [Trump] and girls in bikinis in my kitchen." pic.twitter.com/qoNXJ3ehrX
— Home of the Brave (@OfTheBraveUSA) November 12, 2025
And then there’s Epstein claiming to have spoken to Russian government officials around Trump.
The flood of emails came as Grijalva’s arrival in Congress could propel the next chapter in this saga. “It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional district elected me to represent them,” said Grijalva, who called it “abuse of power” to not allow her to be sworn in. She introduced two “survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse” and referenced emails that showed Trump “knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged.”
“I will sign the discharge petition right now to release the Epstein files,” Grijalva said near the end of her speech. And while her colleagues stood and cheered, she did just that.
