Epstein documents raise new questions about Trump conduct as he denounces Democrats

I usually try to give President Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt.

He is constantly under assault by Democrats and the media — and does more than his share of attacking — but every controversy is cranked up to 11.

On the Jeffrey Epstein mess, I always assumed they were good pals — as was Bill Clinton — but that if there was anything truly awful about this president, it would have come out long ago.

And if Trump had done something bad, these rich guys wouldn’t be dumb enough to leave a paper trail.

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When the business about the birthday message to Epstein came out, I assumed, like most people, including some conservative colleagues, that it was real. Writing such a message in 2003, at the request of Epstein’s girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, even with its racy scribble, just didn’t seem like that big a deal. The problem was that Trump kept calling it fake, a denial that continues today.

But the latest batch of Epstein emails, released yesterday by Democrats on the House Oversight panel, are — what’s the right word? — troubling.

At a very minimum, the long-secret correspondence indicates that Trump was aware of Epstein’s predatory behavior well before he said he broke off the friendship.

As for the White House defense that there’s nothing to see here, and it shows Trump did nothing wrong, consider this.

Investigating House Republicans obtain documents showing that President Obama knew that Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile and may have had relations with one of the young victims. Wouldn’t 99% of them be screaming about what a horrifying scandal this was? 

And wouldn’t most Democrats, even if they criticized the conduct, be searching for ways to justify it?

The president cited the thousands of documents and said Democrats are “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown.”

There are reports that the president called Rep. Lauren Boebert and tried to reach Rep. Nancy Mace to prevent the House from reaching 218 votes for what’s known as a discharge petition — circumventing the leadership to push legislation to the floor. 

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Speaker Mike Johnson refused for 50 days to seat newly elected Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva for the blatantly partisan reason that she vowed to be the 218th vote. CNN says two more GOP reps now say they will join the effort.  

“Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please?” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “Doesn’t that show our level of transparency? Doesn’t it show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?”

Democrats, said Trump, are “trying to bring up the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax again because they’ll do anything at all to deflect on how badly they’ve done on the Shutdown.” 

You’ve probably read the most damaging quotes by now.  

In the most accusatory email, Epstein said, “VICTIM spent hours at my house,” with Trump, the woman who later accused Epstein of sexually abusing her during her teenage years.

That name, in the 20,000 documents released, was redacted. But the Washington Post was among the outlets who identified her as Virginia Giuffre, who was a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago before Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, hired her away, which Trump has cited as the reason for his split from Epstein. Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year.

But, her alleged involvement also may provide some exculpatory evidence. Giuffre always maintained that she recalled meeting Trump once and he was merely friendly. She said the same in a posthumous memoir published last month by her family.

We may never know whether she feared the prospect of making allegations against a former president or, later, a second-term one.

In a 2011 email to Maxwell, Epstein said, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is [Trump.]”

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In one 2019 email to journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein said of Trump that “of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.” Epstein killed himself in prison later that year.

Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, was transferred to a minimum-security prison after being interviewed by Trump’s deputy attorney general.

Wolff had a striking exchange of emails with Epstein, after what he says was a rejection of the prisoner’s offer to write his biography in 2015, when Trump first began running for president. Wolff was coaching Epstein on what to say about the candidate in an upcoming CNN interview.

“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff wrote. “If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or at the house, then that gives you valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially benefits a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”

Wolff, who I’ve known for years, has seen his credibility seriously diminish after recent books about Trump.

Wolff has not said why he held back this information after Epstein’s suicide, as death is generally viewed in journalism as releasing an interviewer from any off-the-record pledge.

Here’s one more about a 2018 exchange with Obama’s former White House counsel Kathy Ruemmler, about a New York Times op-ed arguing for Trump’s impeachment. Epstein wrote that, “[Y]ou see, I know how dirty [D]onald is.”

There has, not surprisingly, been a torrent of criticism from Democrats aimed at the president.

Let’s take a broader view. Trump’s reputation as a womanizer, particular with the allegations involving Stormy Daniels and hush money, is well known, yet the possibility of sex with an underage minor is in a far darker category.

What’s more, two of the key people involved in the case are dead.

How long will the Epstein saga drag on? What happens if and when emails involving Democrats and Epstein come out?

In our limited experience with impeachment, alleged misconduct from well over a decade in the past, involving an office-holder who was a private citizen at the time, is generally not pursued.

So, there may come a point where this unresolved uproar gives way to new controversies about the 47th president.

I can say one thing without fear of contradiction. The bombshell documents totally overshadowed what happened a few hours later: the House voting to end the shutdown of the federal government after 43 agonizing days.