WHAT TRUMP KNEW
NEW EPSTEIN EMAILS COME FROM CRITICAL 2011 PERIOD OF DAILY MAIL REPORTING
By Rob Waldeck
Newly released Jeffrey Epstein emails from House Oversight Democrats reveal that the disgraced financier mistakenly believed Donald Trump had not been mentioned in the Daily Mail’s early 2011 coverage. At the time, the paper was pursuing stories on two Epstein-linked figures tied to the trafficking of Virginia Giuffre: then-Prince Andrew and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. These emails are likely to raise fresh questions about what Trump knew about Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.
The fact that the Daily Mail was targeting not only Prince Andrew but also Barak in early 2011 was first revealed by The (b)(7)(D) in The Silence of Power.
The newly released emails show Jeffrey Epstein expressing mild surprise that Donald Trump had not been mentioned or asked to comment in the Daily Mail’s coverage. In reality, Trump was referenced briefly in the reporting, but the British newspaper appears not to have contacted him directly for comment.
Among the revelations published by the Daily Mail were Virginia Giuffre’s accusations that Epstein had trafficked her to Britain’s Prince Andrew, son of Queen Elizabeth. Photographs of Prince Andrew, Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, and Giuffre appeared in the Mail on Sunday on March 11, 2011.
Epstein’s reaction suggests he expected the Daily Mail’s investigation to go further — and to include Donald Trump. On April 2, 2011, he emailed Ghislaine Maxwell, who was at the center of the allegations. “I want you to realize that [the] dog that hasn’t barked is [Trump],” Epstein wrote. “[Redacted Victim] spent hours at my house with him . . . he has never once been mentioned.” Maxwell responded cryptically: “I have been thinking about that . . .”
In fact, Donald Trump was mentioned in the Daily Mail’s March 5, 2011 story about Virginia Giuffre, which also named Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and Ehud Barak. Of Trump, Giuffre told the Mail: “Donald Trump was also a good friend of Jeffrey’s. He didn’t partake in sex with any of us but he flirted with me. He’d laugh and tell Jeffrey, ‘You’ve got the life.’”
But unlike Gore, Mitchell, and Barak, the Daily Mail apparently did not reach out to Trump for comment about his relationship with Epstein. Barak was the only one of the four who responded. As reported by The (b)(7)(D), in early March the Israeli government mobilized to respond to serious allegations involving Barak and Epstein, posed by Mail on Sunday foreign correspondent Matthew Kalman.
The Israeli government sprang into action. Then–senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, provided the Ministry of Defense’s spokesperson with a prepared response to the Daily Mail’s allegations — and cc’d the document to Barak’s private email account.
The document, sent from one of Ron Dermer’s personal email accounts, was partially quoted in the Daily Mail on March 7. His message cc’d one of Ehud Barak’s private email addresses. As previously revealed by The (b)(7)(D), the statement issued by the Israeli Ministry of Defense spokesperson appeared verbatim in the Daily Mail’s coverage. Reached for comment on The (b)(7)(D)’s earlier reporting, a spokesperson for Dermer confirmed that the email Dermer sent to Barak had been located. Barak has consistently denied ever having sex with Giuffre.
The impact of the newly-revealed Epstein emails has yet to be felt. A 2019 email from Epstein to author Michael Wolff appears to confirm Trump’s claims that the President asked Maxwell to stop recruiting of women at his Mar-a-Lago club. However, the new emails show Trump knew it was Maxwell who was seeking girls for Epstein, complicating the President’s ability to offer her clemency.
The release of the emails comes at a critical time in the efforts to get the Department of Justice to release the files it has on Epstein. News reports indicate that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson will swear in Representative-Elect Adelita Grijalva today, potentially providing the final vote needed for a discharge petition to force release of the materials.