\u201cA pal is a wonderful thing.\u201d<\/b>
\nJust how close was President Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein \u2014 and how much did he know about Epstein\u2019s crimes?
The president\u2019s onetime friendship with Jeffrey Epstein \u2014 the well-connected financier who was indicted for sex trafficking underage girls and died in prison in 2019 \u2014 has long been a matter of public record.
But new emails, obtained from the Epstein estate by Congress and released by House Democrats Wednesday, add more to the story.
In 2011, Epstein emailed his companion and co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, to say that \u201cthe dog that hasn\u2019t barked is trump,\u201d who, he claimed, \u201cspent hours at my house\u201d with one of his victims. (Epstein referred to her by name, but House Democrats redacted the name for her privacy.) Epstein observed that, despite this, Trump has \u201cnever once been mentioned\u201d in the investigation.
Later, in a 2019 email (once Trump was president), Epstein wrote to journalist Michael Wolff, \u201cof course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.\u201d
The emails add to the pile of public signs that Trump was well aware of Epstein\u2019s sexual proclivities, but they are also lacking details or specifics.
Epstein and Trump had socialized together frequently in New York City and Palm Beach from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In 2002, Trump praised Epstein to a reporter as a \u201cterrific guy\u201d \u2014 and curiously added that he \u201clikes beautiful women\u201d on \u201cthe younger side.\u201d
In 2003, Epstein received a \u201cbirthday book\u201d with messages from many of his influential friends, and in it, there\u2019s a message from Trump, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Inside a drawing of a naked woman\u2019s outline, the message claims Trump and Epstein have \u201ccertain things in common.\u201d It concludes: \u201cA pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday \u2014 and may every day be another wonderful secret.\u201d (Trump said that the message is fake and filed a lawsuit against the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for publishing the story.)
Much of the online right has been obsessed with the Epstein scandal for years, hoping Democrats and celebrities would be implicated in his sex crimes. They\u2019ve been comparatively uninterested in Trump\u2019s well-documented, decade-plus relationship with Epstein.
However, Trump and Epstein\u2019s friendship did reportedly end in 2004 in a bitter falling-out; they were fighting to buy the same Florida oceanside mansion, and it got ugly.Trump and Epstein socialized frequently for years
A talented social climber who rapidly attained massive wealth through mysterious means, Epstein became a fixture of New York City and Palm Beach elite circles by the 1990s.
During this period, both Epstein and Trump frequently dined and partied together, at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and Epstein\u2019s mansion in Manhattan. Both frequently hosted or attended parties featuring many models, cheerleaders, beauty pageant contestants, and other attractive young women as guests. They were often photographed together at these events, often with Epstein\u2019s companion Ghislaine Maxwell as well.
In 1992, the New York Times reported that two dozen women went to Mar-a-Lago for a \u201ccalendar girl\u201d competition before only two guests: Trump and Epstein. Per flight logs, Trump flew on Epstein\u2019s private jets seven times between 1993 to 1997, though he never went to the private island in the US Virgin Islands that Epstein purchased in 1998.
Two decades later, in tape-recorded interviews with journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein claimed that he \u201cwas Donald\u2019s closest friend for 10 years.\u201d Epstein said that he and Trump frequently picked up women together in Atlantic City casinos, that Trump enjoyed seducing his best friends\u2019 wives, and that the first time Trump \u201cslept with\u201d Melania was \u201con my plane.\u201d (When Wolff released the tapes last year, Trump\u2019s team dismissed them as \u201cfalse smears.\u201d)
Both Trump and Epstein were accused of sexual misconduct around this time as well \u2014 Trump in a 1997 sexual assault lawsuit, and Epstein in a 1997 police report.
At least once, Mar-a-Lago was allegedly a recruiting site for Epstein\u2019s ring. In 2000, 16-year-old Virginia Giuffre was working as a pool attendant at Trump\u2019s club when Maxwell offered her a job as Epstein\u2019s masseuse. Giuffre alleged that, over the ensuing two years, Epstein and Maxwell then groomed her to have sex with wealthy and influential men, including Prince Andrew of the British royal family. Guiffre died by suicide earlier this year.
When a journalist for New York magazine profiled Epstein in 2002, Trump gave that quote that seemed to allude to Epstein\u2019s preference for young women. \u201cI\u2019ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s 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. No doubt about it \u2014 Jeffrey enjoys his social life.\u201d
Then, in 2003, came the birthday book. According to the Wall Street Journal, it was assembled by Maxwell, and contained joking and innuendo-laden messages from many of Epstein\u2019s friends.
The entry with Trump\u2019s name contained a drawing of the outline of a naked woman, with the signature \u201cDonald\u201d below her waist, and an odd, typewritten message purporting to be a dialogue between Trump and Epstein. In the dialogue, \u201cDonald\u201d says \u201cWe have certain things in common, Jeffrey,\u201d and \u201cEnigmas never age.\u201d
The dialogue concludes with \u201cDonald\u201d saying: \u201cA pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday \u2014 and may every day be another wonderful secret.\u201d Per the Journal, the book is currently in the Justice Department\u2019s possession.
Trump claims the book is fake, asserting \u201cthese are not my words,\u201d and claiming \u201cI don\u2019t draw pictures.\u201d (There are many articles about Trump\u2019s penchant for doodling, sketching and drawing, containing numerous examples of such.)
Salacious as the birthday book sounds, it does not actually prove any misconduct on Trump\u2019s part: The message is vague. But it fed intense speculation on exactly what Trump was referring to about \u201cthings in common\u201d and a \u201cwonderful secret.\u201d And now comes Epstein\u2019s claim, from his 2011 email, that Trump had \u201cspent hours at my house\u201d with one victim.
In court proceedings and grand jury questioning, Epstein victims have accused several powerful and influential men of being involved in his sex crimes \u2014 but these names have largely been reported, and Trump\u2019s name was not among them. In 2016, an anonymous plaintiff filed a lawsuit claiming Trump and Epstein had raped her, but the circumstances around the lawsuit looked very sketchy, and it was soon dropped.Trump and Epstein reportedly had a falling-out in 2004
Trump and Epstein\u2019s happy friendship did not last \u2014 because, in 2004, Trump and Epstein both badly wanted to buy the same oceanfront Palm Beach mansion up for auction.
The chronicled the bitter falling-out, which involved competing bids, each trashing the other to the trustee managing the auction, and threats of lawsuits. (Trump won the mansion, but sold it a few years later to a Russian billionaire.)
This appears to have been a definitive break, as there\u2019s no evidence that Trump and Epstein socialized again after this point.
Just two weeks after the property auction, the Palm Beach police received a tip that young women had been seen entering and leaving Epstein\u2019s home.
The investigation into Epstein truly kicked off the following year, in 2005, when a 14-year-old girl and her parents went to the Palm Beach police, accusing Epstein of molesting her during a massage. Epstein was charged in Florida in 2006, but the case was resolved in 2008 in what was later derided as a sweetheart plea deal.
After that, Epstein\u2019s victims pressed their case in civil lawsuits. An attorney for the victims, Brad Edwards, has said that, in 2009, he sought information from various Epstein acquaintances. Very few were willing to talk voluntarily, but Trump was \u2014 and Edwards said he was \u201cvery helpful in the information that he gave.\u201d
In a court filing, Edwards asserted that Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago \u201cbecause Epstein sexually assaulted an underage girl at the club.\u201d This was likely the information Trump provided, since Trump has told others this as well. But the story has never been corroborated, and details on when this happened remain elusive. (In a newly released email to journalist Michael Wolff, Epstein disputed that he was pushed out of Mar-a-Lago, claiming that he was \u201cnever a member ever.\u201d
Once Trump was president, media reporting revived interest in the Epstein case, and he was arrested on new charges in 2019. He died in prison a month later, in what FBI investigators say was a suicide.
Maxwell, Epstein\u2019s companion, was arrested the following year, in 2020. \u201cI do wish her well,\u201d Trump said then. \u201cI\u2019m not looking for anything bad for her.\u201d
Update, November 12, 10:35 am ET: This article was originally published on July 18 and has been updated with new developments.<\/p>\n