Epstein said this in writing in 2011.
by Ryan Cooper November 13, 2025 (Prospect.org)
Well, now we have it. On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released another batch of documents related to notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Among them were several emails about Donald Trump. One was from Epstein to his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell back in 2011. He 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. police chief. etc. im 75 % there[.]” (Excuse the spelling and grammar errors, that’s all Jeffrey.)
By now, we’re all familiar with what “spent hours” meant in the context of rich, powerful men and Epstein’s victims—particularly given the reference to ‘barking,’ which has to mean going to prosecutors or the media.
Epstein also wrote to the author Michael Wolff in 2019: “[victim] mara lago … trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop[.]” This appears to be a reference to Maxwell picking up victims at Mar-a-Lago—raising the question of whether Trump was mad at Epstein’s abuses, or for “taking our people,” as he said in July.
This certainly puts some more intrigue on the seating yesterday of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), the 218th vote on the discharge petition in the House to release the Epstein files, as well as the Trump administration’s increasingly desperate campaign to stop that vote.
But I have just one question: Was President Biden’s pick to run federal law enforcement, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, kicked in the head by a particularly irritable mule right before assuming office in 2021, and did he thereby spend the next four years wandering around the Justice Department bumping into things and saying, “It feels like I am forgetting something. Where am I?” Because otherwise his term in office is looking like the greatest law enforcement failure in American history, and Biden’s decision to nominate Garland the most catastrophic personnel decision by any Democratic president since James Buchanan.
As we at the Prospect have covered for years now, this is only the latest in about 10,000 stories implicating Trump in Epstein’s abuses. Let’s review some highlights again!
- 1992: Trump and Epstein are filmed partying together with young cheerleaders at Mar-a-Lago.
- 2002: Trump tells New York magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy … He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
- 2003: As part of an incredibly revolting book celebrating Epstein’s 50th birthday, Trump sends a birthday note with a hand-drawn note of a pubescent, nude female form, and a poem reading in part: “Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? … A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
- 2008: Epstein is finally investigated for sexual abuse of minors. Then-U.S. attorney Alex Acosta grants Epstein one of the most bizarre sweetheart deals in American legal history, in which Epstein not only secretly pled to a much lesser charge of soliciting an underage prostitute, but also got all his unnamed accomplices immunized forever.
- 2011: Epstein sends the above email.
- 2016: Epstein claims in another email that he is hanging out in Trump Tower a week after the election.
- 2017: Trump nominates Acosta, who has no relevant experience, to run the Department of Labor, which he does until 2019.
- 2019: Epstein is finally indicted for sexual abuse. A few months later, he apparently commits suicide under the most suspicious circumstances imaginable.
- 2022: Maxwell is convicted of conspiring with Epstein to abuse children, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
- 2025: Trump, back in office, fires the prosecutor who successfully prosecuted Epstein. His lawyers have a meeting with Maxwell. She subsequently says that Trump definitely didn’t do anything wrong, and then she is transferred to apparently the cushiest prison cell in the Western Hemisphere, according to a recent whistleblower report, which includes a service puppy.
That is leaving much out, including Epstein saying on tape that Trump was “my closest friend for 10 years.” I’d argue that this recent email is the most directly damning single piece of evidence, but in context the weight of it all is overwhelming. Any fool can figure out what was going on here.
So why are we only hearing about these emails now? They came from Epstein’s personal email account. Are we really to think that the Biden-era Justice Department could not find or get access to this, when the Trump-era DOJ clearly did? It was a regular Gmail account, for crying out loud, and Epstein, being dead, could not fight them in court. The Epstein estate happily honored the request this year for the birthday book. Google would have tripped over themselves obeying a legitimate order, which could have been obtained easily, to turn over the records of the most notorious pedophile in the world.
Indeed, the incriminating email is actually seen as part of a reply from Maxwell, and the “Gmax” address was known from previous court proceedings. It simply beggars belief.
Given Garland’s other behavior—like the fact that he dragged his feet for months on prosecuting Trump directly for January 6th, and as a recent book by Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis reported, halted the investigation for weeks to avoid influencing the 2022 midterms, even though Trump was not on the ballot—I think it is at least plausible that Garland knew about these emails, and refused to leak them or (better yet) have Trump prosecuted just like Maxwell, because he was obsessed with performing political neutrality. By this view, it is unsporting not to give your high-profile political opponents every possible benefit of the legal doubt, to the point where they get away with grotesque violations of legal procedure, and skate on many crimes.
Let’s not let the rest of the Democratic apparatus off the hook. These emails were released by House Oversight Committee Democrats. That committee existed from 2019 to 2022, when Democrats held the House majority. Yet there was no effort to subpoena this material.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump ran for president three times, and we have photographic, audio, and video evidence of his relationship with Epstein. Outside of maybe a couple of billboards with unknown funders in the South during the 2024 primaries, the Epstein issue never came up in a paid ad from Democrats in any of those campaigns. In fact, the candidate who ran on the Epstein files in 2024 was Trump! “When they go low, we go high” is a syndrome that Democrats are afflicted with, but letting your opponent off the hook from a scandal that would have toppled virtually anyone in the world who had this kind of evidence against them is mind-blowing.
An important task for the leader of any republic is to prevent rebellions or insurrections. That’s why the Constitution formally enables the suspension of habeas corpus in such circumstances. Biden had a relatively easy task compared to Abraham Lincoln. All Biden had to do was enforce the law against a man who broke it in the most blatant fashion imaginable; or failing that, ruin him politically by any means to hand. Even if these emails could not have been published through the normal process, which they almost certainly could have been—thousands of other Epstein emails were unsealed in early 2024—Biden and/or Garland should have just leaked them. Preventing a fascist from becoming president is more important than stuffy adherence to the letter of Department of Justice internal rules.
The fact that there is written evidence indicating that Donald Trump either knew about or was somehow involved in Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile ring, and the Biden administration failed to either find or publicize it, might just doom the American republic.
First, I want to thank you for reading the Prospect. At the end of the day, you’re helping build a more just and fair world by taking the time to read independent and fearless journalism. We hope that when you read our work it isn’t just idle entertainment or cynical ragebait, but something that informs and inspires you. If you agree with that, and I hope you do, we’re asking that you take the next step and consider supporting our work. We don’t have corporate sponsors or billionaire backers – we have you, our readers. A significant portion of the money it takes to send reporters into the field to write the hard-hitting stories you expect from the Prospect comes from readers just like you. Can you chip in today? Your support funds deeply reported investigations into power, how it works, and what it means for you.
Mitchell Grummon
Publisher
Recommended Reading
The Epstein-Trump Scandal Builds
Epstein Signals the End of Donald Trump’s Crackerjack Crisis Management Style
Jeffrey Epstein Is a Policy Issue
Ryan Cooper
Ryan Cooper is the Prospect’s managing editor, and author of How Are You Going to Pay for That?: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. He was previously a national correspondent for The… More by Ryan Cooper
