Donald Trump “spent hours at my house” and “knew about the girls,” Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier accused of orchestrating sex trafficking of girls and young women, wrote in private emails House Democrats released Wednesday.

“Of course he knew about the girls,” Epstein said of Trump in an email to author and journalist Michael Wolff in early 2019, during Trump’s first term as president — one of three email exchanges released by Democrats that Epstein sent to Wolff and Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking after Epstein’s death.

A few hours after Democrats released the small batch of emails mentioning Trump — and urged the Department of Justice to release all Epstein documents to the public — Republicans on the House Oversight Committee suddenly released an additional 20,000 pages of documents received from Epstein’s estate.

The trove of documents released by the GOP include Epstein emails from 2018 that appear to be addressed to Kathy Ruemmler, attorney and former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, discussing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s cooperation with prosecutors.

After Ruemmler sent Epstein a link to a New York Times story referencing Cohen pleading guilty to violating campaigning finance laws to pay adult filmmaker Stormy Daniels, Epstein wrote, “you see, i know how dirty donald is. My guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. What it means to have your fixer flip.”

The trove of documents released Wednesday are sure to revive questions about what Trump knew about Epstein’s sexual misconduct with girls and young women.

Trump has denied knowing anything about Epstein’s crimes and no investigation has tied Trump to them.

“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., said in a statement as he released the documents.

“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President,” Garcia added.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Democrats had “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative to smear President Trump.”

“These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments,” she said in a statement, “and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”

In the 2019 email to Wolff, Epstein referred to Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago club: “Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” he wrote. “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop."

The White House, however, pushed back on the idea that Trump was implicated by that email to Wolff: “The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre, who repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and “couldn’t have been friendlier” to her in their limited interactions,” Leavitt said.

“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” Leavitt said.

In another email dated Dec. 15, 2015, Wolff emailed Epstein ahead of a Republican presidential primary debate: “I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you — either on air or in scrum afterwards.”

Epstein wrote back: “If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”

In a memo released Wednesday, the White House targeted Wolff as a journalist whose record is “riddled with mistakes and inaccuracies.”

It cited concerns over his credibility documented in mainstream media outlets, including the Times, the Washington Post and others.

In a third email, sent to Maxwell in 2011, Epstein wrote: “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. (Victim) spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”

Maxwell responded: “I have been thinking about that ... ”

Before the 2024 presidential election, Trump called for the release of more documents related to Epstein, but his administration appears to have backtracked on its promises to release documents.

Garcia called on the Department of Justice on Wednesday to release all Epstein files to the public immediately. “The Oversight Committee will continue pushing for answers and will not stop until we get justice for the victims,” he said in a statement.

A source in congressional leadership told the Times that Adelita Grijalva, a Democratic representative-elect from Arizona, plans to sign a discharge petition to force a vote on the full release of the Justice Department’s Epstein files immediately upon being sworn in at 4 p.m. EST.

That will kick off a countdown of seven legislative days for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to schedule a vote on the matter. After that, the Oversight Committee “will have more from the subpoenas to private parties,” including the Epstein estate, the source said, likely ensuring the story continues to make headlines through the midterms.

Epstein, 66, died by suicide in a New York jail in August 2019, weeks after he was arrested and charged in federal court with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors. A watchdog report released last year found that negligence, misconduct and other failures at the jail contributed to his death.

More than a decade earlier, Epstein evaded federal criminal charges when he struck a plea deal in a south Florida case related to accusations that he molested dozens of girls.

As part of the agreement, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges, including soliciting prostitution. He registered as a sex offender and served 13 months in jail but was allowed to leave six days a week to work at his office.

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(Los Angeles Times staff writer Kevin Rector contributed to this article.)

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