(CNN) — For years, President Donald Trump has sought to downplay his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who for years moved in the same social circles as Trump in Palm Beach and Manhattan.
Trump has alternately called Epstein a “terrific guy” — in 2002 — and later insisted he was “not a fan,” saying the two men had a falling out long before Epstein faced his most serious legal troubles.
But a new batch of emails from Epstein’s estate, released this week by the House Oversight Committee, adds fresh detail to a relationship that has long been scrutinized.
The newly released messages don’t fundamentally rewrite the known history between Trump and Epstein, but they do introduce three notable new elements:
- Epstein’s claim that Trump “spent hours” with a trafficking and rape victim inside his home, who House Republicans on Wednesday identified as the late Virginia Giuffre — one of Epstein’s most prominent victims. Giuffre died by suicide in April. She never implicated Trump in any wrongdoing in her book or public comments. Epstein was referring to Trump in the 2011 email with his longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking after Epstein’s 2019 death.
- Epstein’s assertion that Trump “knew about the girls” – seemingly in reference to Trump’s claim that he kicked Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club for poaching young women who worked there.
- And Epstein’s blunt private assessments of Trump during his first term as President.
“I told everyone from day one. evil beyond belief, mad, ” Epstein wrote of Trump in March 2018. “he feels alone. and is nuts !!!”
Several months later in a text message to a recipient whose name is redacted, an unidentified person wrote to Epstein, “It will all blow over! They’re really just trying to take down Trump and doing whatever they can do to do that …!”
To which, Epstein replied: “yes thx. its wild. because I am the one able to take him down.”
CNN’s review of thousands of pages of Epstein’s emails shows that Trump was one of the figures he returned to often. Across exchanges with lawyers, journalists, business contacts and familiar acquaintances, Epstein repeatedly invoked Trump — sometimes to offer analysis of his behavior, sometimes to gossip, and sometimes simply to position himself as someone with rare insight into the man who had become president.
The emails suggest that Trump remained a fixation for Epstein, as he’s frequently mentioned numerous times over a span of nearly a decade — including long after their friendship ended.
In the 2011 email to Maxwell, Epstein described Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked.” It’s unclear what he’s referring to.
In a December 2015 email, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff about how Trump might handle questions about his past relationship with Epstein. Trump at the time was running for President.
In February 2017, in an email to former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Epstein wrote of Trump, “i have met some very bad people ,, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body.. so yes – dangerous.”
The White House has forcefully rejected the suggestion that Trump knew about Epstein’s activities.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the emails “prove absolutely nothing” and repeated their claim that Trump expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, a point Epstein seemingly referenced in the newly released emails.
“trump said he asked me to resign, never a member, ever,” Epstein wrote in January 2019.
On Friday, Trump accused Democrats of trying to revive attention to his past ties with Epstein and said he will ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to other high-profile figures.
“I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The emails also capture Epstein’s unvarnished impressions of Trump during his first presidential term, often mixing gossip, analysis, claims of insider insight, and blunt assessments.
“your world does not understand how dumb he really is,” he wrote of Trump in a 2017 email. “he will blame everyone around him.”
It was a remarkable turn for two former close friends.
The two moved in the same Palm Beach and Manhattan circles in the 1990s and early 2000s — flying together on private jets, attending parties at Mar-a-Lago, appearing at Victoria’s Secret runway shows; their friendship documented in flight logs, phone messages, photos and video. In 1993, Epstein attended Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples, according to photos previously uncovered by CNN.
Epstein once called Trump his “closest friend for 10 years,” a characterization echoed by several people in their orbit.
The relationship eventually fractured.
Trump has since dismissed Epstein as a “creep” he expelled from his club. By 2004, Trump and Epstein had a well-known falling out, reportedly tied to a dispute over a Palm Beach mansion both men wanted to buy at auction. That dispute was long cited — though its exact details remain murky — as the reason he distanced himself from Epstein years before his arrest.
Trump’s own account later shifted and he claimed he broke with Epstein because Epstein “stole people that worked for me” at Mar-a-Lago, in comments he made to reporters in July.
What’s clear is that by Trump’s presidency, his view of his former close friend had totally soured.
In messages from 2017 and 2018, he described Trump as “f***ing crazy,” speculated he might be showing “early dementia,” called him “a maniac,” compared him to a mob boss, replied “duh” when someone referred to Trump as “truly stupid,” and added that he was “borderline insane.”
“he feels alone. and is nuts !!! , I told everyone from day one. evil beyond belief. mad, and most thought i was speaking metaphorically. its obvious he could crack. stormy daniels. ? lies after lies aflter lies,” he wrote in one 2018 email.
In a 2019 exchange, a contact wrote to Epstein, “just met your friend POTUS.”
“See if you still have your wallet,” Epstein responded
Other emails offered insight into his views of Trump’s mindset.
“donald is close to no one,” Epstein wrote in one exchange with an Emirati businessman in 2018. “he talks to many people. he tells each one something differnt.”
In one exchange with former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, discussing Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer who had flipped on him, Epstein added, “i know how dirty Donald is.”
Whether the emails change anything politically is unclear.
But next week, the House is set to vote on whether to force the full release of additional Epstein files — legislation that would also require Senate approval and the president’s signature before taking effect, which could bring even more of the men’s past into public view.
The-CNN-Wire
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