The Trump White House undercut House Democrats’ disingenuous release Wednesday of three salacious-seeming emails from convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — revealing that a victim who the disgraced financier claimed “spent hours” with the future president had already vouched for his conduct.
On April 2, 2011, Epstein described Trump in a message to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell — who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking conspiracy and other charges — as “that dog that hasn’t barked,” adding that a victim whose name was redacted “spent hours at my house with him [and] he has never once been mentioned.”
Moments later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at the release by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Donald Trump “knew about the girls as he asked [G]hislaine to stop.” Getty Images
“The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” Leavitt told The Post in a statement. “The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who 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,” Leavitt added. “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.”
“Why did Democrats cover up the name when the [Epstein] Estate didn’t redact it in the redacted documents provided to the committee?” the Oversight Committee’s Republicans asked on X in response to the release. “It’s because this victim, Virginia Giuffre, publicly said that she never witnessed wrongdoing by President Trump.
“Democrats are trying to create a fake narrative to slander President Trump. Shame on them.”
Giuffre, who went public with her accusations against Epstein in 2011, had worked as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago, where her father was a maintenance manager.
The late Virginia Giuffre, seen here holding a photo of herself as a teen, had previously said President Trump was never involved in any wrongdoing. TNS
At some point in 2000, Giuffre, then 16, met Maxwell, who offered her a job working for Epstein as a traveling masseuse. In her posthumous memoir, “Nobody’s Girl,” Giuffre described being introduced to Trump by her father shortly before Maxwell and Epstein entered her life.
“Trump couldn’t have been friendlier,” Giuffre wrote, “telling me it was fantastic that I was there.”
Far from implicating Trump in any illegal activity, Giuffre recounted that he helped her make some extra money as a baby-sitter for wealthy families who rented out homes the real estate mogul owned on the Palm Beach property.
Epstein — seen in a video still with three females — also called Trump “that dog that hasn’t barked” in 2011. Florida State Attorney’s Office
In another email, written by Epstein to discredited author Michael Wolff on Jan. 31, 2019 — less than six months before Epstein’s arrest on federal sex trafficking charges — the sex criminal admitted that Trump told Maxwell to stop plucking young girls from the spa at Mar-a-Lago to groom and abuse.
“[T]rump said he asked me to resign,” Epstein told Wolff. “[I was] never a member ever.”
“[O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked [G]hislaine to stop.”
Trump has insisted that renewed interest in the Epstein case is a “hoax” driven by Democrats to harm him politically after the Justice Department and FBI concluded over the summer that the 66-year-old committed suicide and did not keep a “client list” of wealthy and powerful allies to whom he trafficked girls as young as 14 — contrary to widespread public speculation.
On July 29, Trump told reporters that Epstein “stole people that worked for me” in a rare public explanation of how the former Wall Street titan became persona non grata at Mar-a-Lago.
Epstein wrote of Trump, “of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” REUTERS
“Everyone knows the people that were taken, and it was the concept of, taking people that work for me is bad,” the president said at the time. “But that story has been pretty well out there, and the answer is yes, they were.”
“I have a great spa, one of the best spas in the world, at Mar-a-Lago. And people were taken out of the spa, hired by him,” Trump recounted. “When I heard about it, I told him, I said, ‘Listen, we don’t want you taking our people,’ whether it was spa or not spa, I don’t want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, ‘Out of here.’”
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Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell on Aug. 10, 2019, while awaiting trial, and Trump, now 79, enjoyed a warm friendship in the 1990s and early 2000s, but reportedly fell out in the middle of the latter decade amid a bidding war over a since-demolished Palm Beach, Fla., mansion.
Wolff, whose claim on a podcast hosted by the Daily Beast over the summer that Melania Trump was “very involved” in the future president’s “relationship” with Epstein led to a lawsuit threat from the first lady and a retraction by the lefty news site, popped up in Epstein’s correspondence again on Dec. 15, 2015, the night of a Republican primary debate.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterward,” wrote Wolff.
Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach home. SDNY
“[I]f we were able to craft an answer for him,” Epstein answered, “what do you think it should be?”
“I think you should let him hang himself,” answered Wolff, who has authored four widely disputed books about Trump’s first administration and sucessful 2024 campaign. “If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. 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.
“Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
A bipartisan petition to force a House vote on a measure compelling the Justice Department to release its Epstein files was expected to receive the required 218th signature later Wednesday, when Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) is sworn in by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Under House rules, once Grijalva signs on to the House petition, the resolution can be brought to the floor after seven legislative days — though the bill would still have to pass the Republican-controlled Senate and be signed by Trump himself.