Epstein emails shake Washington, fuel debate over Trump and transparency

Newly released emails written by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are sending shockwaves through Washington this morning

including mentions of President Trump and a bitter political fight over whether the public should see all the Epstein files

More than 20,000 emails sent by Epstein between 2011 and 2019 were made public by House lawmakers on Wednesday

In one 2011 message to Jelaine Maxwell, Epstein claimed that then-businessman Donald Trump, quote

spent hours at my house with a young woman who would later accuse Epstein of sex trafficking, calling Trump that dog that hasn't barked

In another email, Epstein wrote to author Michael Wolff that Trump, of course, knew about the girls and asked Maxwell to stop

And in a separate 2015 exchange, Wolf warned Epstein that if Trump denied ever visiting him

quote, 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, end quote. Democrats on

the House Oversight Committee released those emails first saying they raised new questions about what Trump knew and when Republicans responded hours later with a 20 dump of Epstein documents from the

estate, accusing Democrats of, quote, cherry-picking to embarrass the president. Here's how the White House hit back on Wednesday

These emails prove absolutely nothing other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong

And what President Trump has always said is that he was from Palm Beach and so was Jeffrey Epstein

Jeffrey Epstein was a member at Mar-a-Lago until President Trump kicked him out because Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and he was a creep

And this email you refer to with the name of a victim that was unredacted now and has since been reported on in this room

So I will go ahead and say it. Virginia Guffrey. And it was CBS's own reporting Ouija that recently wrote that Miss Guffrey maintained and God rest her soul that she maintained that there was nothing inappropriate

she ever witnessed that President Trump was always extremely professional and friendly to her

The White House is calling the emails a hoax, arguing Trump hadn't had contact with Epstein

in decades and Democrats are trying to change the subject away from the government shutdown Republicans note the woman Epstein referred to in that 2011 email as you just heard there from Caroline Leavitt is Virginia Giuffre one of Epstein best survivors

who died by suicide in April and who never accused Trump of wrongdoing

The email spanned from 2011, as Epstein rebuilt his social circle, to 2019, months before he died in federal custody

They include correspondence with Wolf, who later wrote a book about Donald Trump

Those documents surfaced on the same day the House returned from a seven-week shutdown recess

and its newest member, Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva, was swept into the center of the Epstein fight

Moments after being sworn in, Grijalva signed the discharge petition to force a vote on releasing all government files related to Jeffrey Epstein

giving the effort its crucial 218th signature. With my signing, we move one step closer to the truth, the truth that they will try to deny

but that survivors deserve their day of justice and the American people demand it

Her signature means the House must now hold a vote on a bipartisan bill sponsored by Republican Thomas Massey and Democrat Ro Khanna requiring the Justice Department to release all Epstein files with the victim names redacted

All 214 Democrats and four Republicans have signed on. House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed

late Wednesday he will bring the bill to the floor next week, earlier than expected. The vote will

force members of both parties to go on the record about making the full Epstein files public

an issue that has drawn support from Trump allies and Democrats alike

As for Grijalva, her swearing in ended a seven-week delay that Democrats say

was designed to keep her from signing that petition. It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona's 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them

This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly elected member of Congress for political reasons

Johnson insists the delay was procedural, not political, as well as delayed by the shutdown

The Speaker says he followed House custom and that Grijalva didn't miss a vote