Exiled by the elite after his conviction for sexually soliciting a teenage lady and failing to rehabilitate his picture as a sexual predator, an embittered Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 believed his outdated buddy Donald Trump had escaped scrutiny.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote to his longtime affiliate Ghislaine Maxwell that April, noting Trump had “spent hours at my house” with Virginia Giuffre, one of the crucial outstanding ladies to talk out about being abused by the financier, who died by suicide in April.
Ghislaine Maxwell in 2013 file picture. (Picture by Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Photos)
Epstein was at a low level when he despatched the missive to Maxwell after serving jail time in Florida for soliciting a 16-year-old. Two months earlier, a Manhattan decide had rejected a bid to downgrade his intercourse offender standing, regardless of the well-connected wealth supervisor having then-District Legal professional Cyrus Vance, Jr., in his nook.
Giuffre had publicly spoken out about her allegations that Epstein trafficked her to highly effective males for intercourse, sharing with the Every day Mail a now-infamous {photograph} of her along with his buddy Prince Andrew and Maxwell as obvious proof.
Virginia Roberts Giuffre speaks at a press convention following a listening to the place Jeffrey Epstein victims made statements at Manhattan Federal Courtroom Tuesday, August 27, 2019 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams for New York Every day Information)
“I have been thinking about that…,” Maxwell replied.
Claiming that their colleagues throughout the aisle had engaged in a cherry-picking mission, Home Republicans later revealed hundreds of Epstein’s digital information on-line, revealing Giuffre’s identification within the 2011 message, which the Democrats had beforehand redacted. Many got here to the president’s protection, arguing that it proved nothing. Giuffre, they famous, had denied that Trump had abused her or that she’d seen him abuse others within the years earlier than her dying.
The president has lengthy denied participating in any abuse and claimed he stopped speaking to Epstein — whom he’d counted as a buddy because the Eighties — within the early 2000s over a dispute associated to actual property.
Legal professional Common Pam Bondi mentioned Jay Clayton, U.S. Legal professional for the Southern District of New York, would head the probe.
US President Donald Trump speaks throughout a gathering with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban within the Cupboard Room of the White Home in Washington, DC on November 7, 2025. (Picture by SAUL LOEB/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Grime on Trump
Made clear all through is that — whether or not or not he did — Epstein maintained he had grime on Trump.
Messaging forward of a presidential debate in December 2015, Epstein requested his quasi-consultant, Trump biographer Michael Wolff, with whom he spoke frequently, how Trump may finest reply a possible query about their relationship.
“I think you should let him hang himself. 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,” Wolff responded.
“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.”
Wolff prompt it might be time to drag the set off lower than two weeks earlier than Trump received the presidency in 2016, following the discharge of “Filthy Rich,” a ebook about Epstein’s perversions.
“There’s an opportunity to come forward this week and talk about Trump in such a way that could garner you great sympathy and help finish him. Interested?” Wolff wrote on Oct. 29. It’s not clear from the discharge whether or not Epstein responded.
In June 2018, he requested former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland to convey a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin about his willingness to supply perception on Trump.
His correspondence with Wolff is featured all through the information, and Epstein additionally steadily spoke about Trump with former New York Occasions reporter Landon Thomas Jr., joking about sending him a photograph of Trump with ladies in bikinis in his kitchen in December 2015.
He additionally chatted usually with Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who in August 2018 instructed the financier they needed to focus on “a crazed jihad against u,” and that “somebody big has u in the gunsights.”
After Trump’s private lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded responsible to breaking marketing campaign finance legal guidelines for then-President Trump within the now-notorious Stormy Daniels hush cash scheme in 2018, Epstein alluded to his insider’s perspective in correspondence with Kathy Ruemmler, a former Goldman Sachs govt and Obama aide, with whom the cache exhibits he steadily chatted.
“You see, i know how dirty donald is,” the financier quipped. “my guess is that non-lawyers ny biz people have no idea. what it means to have your fixer flip.”
“The real villain”
That December, The Miami Herald revealed probably the most full account but of allegations Epstein had serially exploited weak teenage ladies. The piece laid out how Epstein had successfully gotten off with a slap on the wrist in his 2008 plea deal as a result of former U.S. Legal professional Alexander Acosta, who Trump had tapped as his Labor Secretary.
Epstein strategized with Wolff, who believed “directly debunking” the claims wasn’t the precise transfer.
“That’s going against virtue itself,” Wolff wrote. “What I’d like to do is game out everything, creating a structure for thinking this through. Definitely not a piecemeal response. Figure out where we want to be and where we can reasonably get and work backwards.”
Epstein replied, “im thinking what would trump do.”
“Claims are ludicrous and self-serving, media is working with the other side’s lawyers, this is all about Donald Trump,” Wolff responded.
“…all about Donald Trump, the real villain,” Epstein mentioned.
Inside eight weeks, Epstein was useless. Officers mentioned he’d killed himself in his decrease Manhattan jail cell a month after his arrest on sweeping intercourse trafficking fees.
Maxwell, his longtime companion in crime, was indicted a 12 months later for aiding the abuse for at the least a decade within the Nineteen Nineties and convicted at trial in December 2021. This summer time, she was transferred to a soft jail facility in Bryan, Texas, after assembly with Deputy Legal professional Common Todd Blanche, Trump’s former private lawyer, for a extremely uncommon sit-down.
Transcripts of the assembly confirmed that Epstein’s longtime right-hand revealed little new info however notably praised the president, whom she is reportedly now planning to ask for a pardon.
