Journalism of Courage
The House Oversight Committee’s release of over 20,000 documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has opened a can of worms for US President Donald Trump, who has maintained that he has done nothing wrong.
The documents, including his email communication, which were handed over to the House Oversight Committee by Epstein’s estate, laid bare the late financier’s long-running ties with Trump, before their fallout.
The most damaging among them could be Epstein’s correspondence with Landon Thomas, who was a reporter for The New York Times at that time.
In an email on December 8, 2015, Epstein asked Thomas if he “would you like photso [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen,” ABC News reported.
Thomas replied, “Yes!!”
Thomas, who has since left the NYT, told the newspaper that Epstein never provided any such pictures.
In another email, Epstein suggested that reporters “ask my houseman about donad [sic] almost walking through the door leaving his nose print on the glass as young women were swimming in the pool and he was so focused he walked straight into the door.”
The House Oversight Committee’s release of the Epstein documents on Wednesday came hours after the Democrats made public three emails, which suggested that Trump was aware of the sexual abuse of girls on Epstein’s Island.
The White House had played down the release of the three emails, calling it “another Democrat + Mainstream Media hoax, fuelled by fake outrage, to distract from the President’s wins”.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump also suggested that Democrats were “using the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax to try and deflect from their massive failures, in particular, their most recent one — THE SHUTDOWN!.”
These were made before the House Oversight Committee released over 20,000 more Epstein documents to the public, and neither Trump nor the White House has commented about it.
