Biggest takeaways from Epstein’s emails and references to Trump
Josh Meyer, USA TODAY’s domestic security correspondent, investigated thousands of Epstein emails. Here are the biggest takeaways about President Trump:
- Former President Bill Clinton has been linked to Jeffrey Epstein, but Epstein claimed in an email that Clinton never visited his private island.
- Clinton has admitted to being on Epstein’s plane, but denies visiting the island where sex trafficking is said to have taken place.
- President Donald Trump has also denied ever visiting Epstein’s island, but has called for an investigation into Democrats who may have visited.
Former President Bill Clinton has long been one of the high-profile figures fueling curiosity about Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal case file.
“The American people want to know what happened on Epstein Island…We know Bill Clinton went to Epstein Island multiple times,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told Newsmax in August. Epstein owned a small private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he allegedly sex-trafficked young girls. “We just want to ask him what he saw when he was there and who was involved.”
President Donald Trump also alluded to Clinton’s visit to the island in a Nov. 14 post on Truth Social, saying that Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, JPMorgan, Chase and Clinton “spent most of their lives on Mr. Epstein and his ‘island,'” and said he would ask the Justice Department to investigate Democrats connected to the late financier and sex offender.
But Mr. Epstein said in an email, part of thousands of documents released by the commission on Nov. 12, that Mr. Clinton had never been to the island.
“Mr. Clinton was never there, never,” Epstein wrote.
Here’s what you need to know:
Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane.
In 2019, when Epstein was indicted in New York on sex trafficking charges, Clinton admitted to flying on Epstein’s planes multiple times in the early 2000s, but denied ever visiting the island he owned.
Virginia Giuffre, the late Epstein defendant, said she saw Clinton there but never saw her do anything illegal.
In a January 2015 email to author Michael Wolff, in which Mr. Epstein denied Mr. Clinton visited the island, he said another person (whose name has been redacted) had falsely claimed to have seen Mr. Clinton on the island.
“The[redacted]narrator has completely made up most of it,” he wrote, arguing that it overrules other claims.
USA TODAY reached out to Clinton’s representatives for this story.
Where is Epstein’s island? What happened there?
The island owned by Epstein was in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Epstein also owned real estate in New York and Palm Beach, Florida, where U.S. federal prosecutors said sex trafficking took place.
In January 2020, prosecutors in the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a lawsuit against Epstein’s estate, alleging that a criminal enterprise involving the sexual abuse of young girls was carried out on his property.
“Epstein owned and arranged private planes, helicopters, boats, and automobiles to transport his victims to, from, and within the Virgin Islands, and provided funds to pay for these young women and underage girls,” the complaint states.
Many of the girls forced to participate in his scheme were between the ages of 12 and 17, and local authorities last observed any related incidents in 2018, according to the complaint.
Epstein’s web of companies, which prosecutors have dubbed “Epstein Enterprises,” “deceptively lured underage girls and women into sex trafficking rings with promises of money and jobs, career opportunities, and educational assistance.”
The complaint states one of the 15-year-old girls tried to swim away.
The foundation settled a lawsuit with the U.S. Virgin Islands for $105 million in December 2022.
Has Trump been to Epstein’s island?
President Trump previously denied visiting late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, calling it one of his “very good moments.”
As the controversy continues to plague his administration for weeks, President Trump traveled to Scotland on July 28 to answer questions from reporters.
“I never had the opportunity to go to his island, and I turned him down, but a lot of people in Palm Beach were invited to his island,” Trump said. “It was one of those great moments where I said no. I didn’t want to go to his island.”
What do Epstein’s emails say about Trump?
The House Oversight Committee released thousands of pages of documents from Epstein’s estate on November 12th. House Democrats began the day by pointing to emails from Epstein that claimed Trump “knew the girls” and that Trump spent hours with one of his victims.
The release comes as Congress reconvenes to reopen the government and a bipartisan effort to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files has gathered enough signatures.
“These emails prove nothing except that President Trump did nothing wrong,” White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said at a press conference on November 12. Trump also claimed on Truth Social, as he had previously, that the controversy was a hoax.
“Democrats are going to bring back the Jeffrey Epstein hoax because they’ll do anything they can to deflect from how bad they did with the government shutdown and so many other topics,” Trump said. “Only very bad or stupid Republicans would fall into that trap.”
(Michael Wolff was a freelance USA TODAY contributor from 2012 to early 2017. USA TODAY had no knowledge of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or any of his activities beyond his contributions to our publications. We value integrity and transparency in order to uphold our editorial standards and maintain the trust of our readers.)
Contributed by Holly Baltz, Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY Network
Kinsey Crowley is a Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Please contact KCrowley@usatodayco.com. follow her X (Twitter), blue sky and TikTok.
