'He knew about the girls': Epstein messages pile pressure on Trump

Emails prompt new calls for White House to publish files in full

- Richard Luscombe

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump pictured together at the future president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in 1997

(DAVIDOFF STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES)

Damning new emails that suggest Donald Trump knew about the conduct of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released yesterday, including one in which Epstein said "of course [Trump] knew about the girls" procured for his sex-trafficking ring, and another that said Trump had "spent hours" with one victim at Epstein's house.

The release of the three messages by Democrats on the House oversight committee is likely to heap significant pressure on the White House to publish in full the so-called Epstein files reportedly detailing the long-running scandal that has overshadowed Trump's second term in office.

Later yesterday, the committee's Republican majority countered by releasing its own tranche of 23,000 documents, accusing Democrats of "cherry picking" the memos "to generate clickbait".

Trump, meanwhile, fired off a post to his Truth Social platform in which he said Democrats were trying to distract from the government shutdown that has left hundreds of thousands of federal workers unpaid.

He accused them of "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".

The president urged House members to focus instead on the forthcoming vote to reopen the government: "There should be no deflections to Epstein or anything else, and any Republicans involved should be focused only on opening up our country, and fixing the massive damage caused by the Democrats!" Numerous victims have said they were assaulted at Epstein's infamous parties that took place at his home in New York, his Florida mansion, and at his compound at Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands, to which "clients" would be ferried by private jet.