WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said Donald Trump knew about the underage girls that Epstein was accused of victimizing, according to emails released on Wednesday by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Democrats cite exchanges with author Michael Wolff and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and Epstein’s former girlfriend who is serving a 20-year prison sentence on charges including sex trafficking of a minor.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s but has denied any wrongdoing.
“In private correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein wrote in 2011 that Donald Trump, ‘spent hours at my house’ with a victim of sex trafficking,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said in a statement.
The Democrats cited a separate email with Wolff in 2019, in which “Epstein stated explicitly that Donald Trump, ‘knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.'”
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland, Kat Jackson; Editing by Franklin Paul)
