The White House has responded to leaked emails linking president Donald Trump to late Jeffrey Epstein saying 'President Trump did nothing wrong'. Spokesperson Abigail Jackson told the BBC "These emails prove literally nothing"
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails that they said raised new questions about President Donald Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein and how much he knew about Epstein's abuse of underage girls, while the swearing-in of a new Democrat kicked off a fresh fight in Congress over further disclosures.
The Democrats released messages between Epstein and author Michael Wolff and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on charges related to her role in facilitating Epstein's sex trafficking.
In one 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein, a convicted sex offender, wrote that Trump "knew about the girls," though it was not clear what that phrase meant.
In another 2019 email, Epstein said Trump "came to my house many times" and "never got a massage." That email was part of a trove of documents released later on Wednesday by a Republican-led congressional committee.
Trump has vehemently and consistently denied knowing about Epstein's sex trafficking. He has said that he and Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019, were once friends before having a falling out.
He accused the Democrats of "using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures".
The Epstein case has dogged Trump for months, upsetting even his own political supporters, who believe the government has been covering up Epstein's ties to the rich and powerful and who have been unusually critical of his Justice Department for not releasing more information about the Epstein case.
Trump on Wednesday accused Democrats of releasing the emails to distract from the record 43-day shutdown of the government.
"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, and so many other subjects," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday afternoon.
The disclosures came on the day that Democratic Representative Adelita Grijalva was sworn in by House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, providing a majority to force a House vote to release all unclassified records related to Epstein, something Johnson and Trump have resisted up to now.
"It's past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration," Grijalva said.
Johnson's office said the House would hold that vote next week.
The batch of emails released earlier on Wednesday includes a 2011 message to Maxwell in which Epstein described Trump as "that dog that hasn't barked," adding that Trump had "spent hours at my house" with one of his victims, whose name is redacted.
Later in the day, Republicans released a cache of 20,000 Epstein-related documents in which Trump's name surfaces frequently, though typically in the context of his political career or allegations of sexual behavior. In one exchange, Epstein refers to a 20-year-old girlfriend whom he "gave to Donald" in 1993, and talks about photos of "Donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen," though it is not clear whether he is joking.
'TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG,' WHITE HOUSE SAYS
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of redacting the victim's name in the released emails because the victim was Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April and had called Trump friendly without accusing him of any wrongdoing in her posthumous memoir.
"These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong," Leavitt said on Wednesday.
Just four in 10 Republicans told an October Reuters/Ipsos poll that they approved of Trump's handling of the Epstein files -- well below the nine in 10 who approve of his overall performance in the White House.
Trump and other administration officials have reached out to Republican Representatives Lauren Boebert and Nancy Mace to try to get them to remove their names from the petition that would force a vote on releasing all of the files, according to reporting by Axios and other media outlets.
Boebert told reporters there was "no pressure" when she met with White House officials to discuss the matter on Wednesday, adding that she remained a supporter of the petition.
Mace, who has spoken publicly about her experience as a sexual assault survivor, is not removing her name from the petition "because of her personal story," spokesperson Sydney Long said.
One person was killed and nearly a dozen hurt in a new attack Riyadh's international airport on Sunday, Saudi ...
The 25th World Petroleum Council (WPC) Energy Congress began in Riyadh on Sunday (11 October), running from 11 to 15 October under the theme &ldquo...
The Kremlin on Monday rejected a 60-day ceasefire idea proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to...
The explosion at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday afternoon killed at least 12 people and injured a further 309, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority. The airport remains closed until further notice.
One person was killed and nearly a dozen hurt in a new attack Riyadh's international airport on Sunday, Saudi authorities reported, a day after a strike claimed by Yemen's Houthis that killed 13 people and wounded more than 300.
Yemen's Houthis renewed warning to airlines, airport workers, and travellers against using Saudi airports, saying the warning should be taken seriously and that the kingdom “bore responsibility for failed interceptions”, a day after an attack on Riyadh's international airport that killed 12 people.
The Houthi movement has escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting the airport in Riyadh and other cities, killing more than a dozen people.
Ukraine is ready to stop attacks on Russian oil refineries if Moscow also halts strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
The Kremlin on Monday rejected a 60-day ceasefire idea proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow his country to hold presidential elections, saying it wanted an overall peace deal instead.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 12 October 2026 with the top five natural disasters happening around the world.
The Houthi movement has escalated their attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting the airport in Riyadh and other cities, killing more than a dozen people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine is ready to respect the energy ceasefire announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, but only if Russia does the same, saying Moscow has already violated the agreement.
China has announced sanctions against Belize’s foreign minister and Paraguay’s communications minister over their countries’ diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The move comes as Beijing continues to pressure the few remaining nations that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taipei.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment