Trump-Epstein Ties Back in Spotlight With Release of 20K New Pages

Jeffrey Epstein, who took his own life in 2019 while imprisoned on charges of being a sex trafficker and a pedophile, continues to haunt the Republican Party and its leader, President Donald Trump.

Republicans released about 20,000 pages of Epstein documents on Wednesday, shortly after Democrats published a handful of emails Epstein once sent to confidantes and acquaintances suggesting that Trump knew more about Epstein’s predations than he had acknowledged. The disgraced financier also seemed to allege in the documents that Trump kept company for hours with one of Epstein’s victims. Bloomberg Opinion Senior Executive Editor joins to discuss with Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu.

The trove of documents included emails in which Epstein — who died in 2019 while facing sex-trafficking charges — appeared to allege that Trump spent hours in a house with one of Epstein’s victims.

The new information came the same day that a new House lawmaker was officially sworn into office. Adelita Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, immediately signed a petition forcing a vote on legislation to compel the Justice Department to release files on Epstein.

“Justice cannot wait another day,” said Grijalva, who provided the decisive 218th signature on the petition.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he will bring the legislation to a vote next week.

“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 posted on social media. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican would fall into that trap.”

Trump has repeatedly said he cut ties with Epstein nearly two decades ago and was not aware of the late financier’s activities.

Still, both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have pushed for more information, pitting Trump against members of his own party. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina have said they would join with Democrats to force a vote for the DOJ to release the files.

The fissures in the GOP over Epstein have strained relationships in the chamber, with House Speaker Mike Johnson seeking to suppress the issue with little success.

Trump, as a 2024 presidential candidate, said he would declassify the DOJ’s files, fueling pressure from parts of his base to provide more transparency over the sex-trafficking investigation.

The Justice Department in February said it had released information related to Epstein that was mostly “previously leaked.”

The case has long drawn interest from many Trump allies and spurred conspiracy theories about the late convicted sex offender’s associates and death, which was ruled a suicide. It’s also raised questions about the nature of Trump’s relationship with Epstein, what the president knew about sex-trafficking activities and whether the DOJ files contain more information.

Trump has expressed frustration with those questions, saying the media should focus on other individuals. In July, he told reporters he had “nothing to do with the guy” and that he “never went to the island,” appearing to refer to properties in the Caribbean where it is alleged that Epstein sexually abused and trafficked young women.

“The Democrats selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The House Oversight Committee — controlled by Republicans — has probed the government’s handling of the case since the DOJ and Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded in July that no new records from the 300 gigabytes of data that make up the Epstein files would be released.

Since then, Democrats have focused on the extent of Trump’s ties to Epstein, releasing specific emails to spotlight the relationship between the two men. The latest emails that dropped Wednesday came from Epstein’s estate.

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