Donald Trump‘s is fighting to keep his political footing — again.
The latest scandal linking him to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein has sent shockwaves through Washington, raising questions about whether the embattled president can weather another storm.
House Democrats this week released a trove of Epstein estate emails from the 2010s.
Among the most explosive revelations: one message suggesting Trump ‘spent hours’ at Epstein’s mansion with one of his sex-trafficking victims.
Another email claims Trump ‘knew about the girls’ — a chilling line that legal experts say could prove damaging both politically and morally.
The White House dismissed the emails as a ‘selectively leaked’ smear job and said Trump never did anything wrong.
But for Trump, who has spent decades dodging accusations of sexual misconduct, they are a dangerous reminder of a past he’d rather keep buried.
Attorney Nancy Erika Smith, who represented a former Trump golf club waitress in a sexual harassment case involving her supervisor, said the emails expose a familiar pattern: denial and moral rot.
‘After promising to release all the Epstein information and drumming up the MAGA base about getting to the bottom of it, he completely switched when he got in office,’ Smith told the Daily Mail.
The emails were released by Democrats on the House of Oversight Committee Wednesday morning, showing Epstein speak of the president several times. (Pictured: Epstein and Trump in Palm Beach, Florida in 1997)
Smith said the newly released emails narrow the gap between Trump and Epstein by placing him in the disgraced financier’s home.
‘We now have an email showing he was there, for several hours, with a victim. It’s pretty damning,’ she said.
The attorney claimed the evidence helps explain why the Trump administration has resisted releasing Epstein-related documents despite repeated pledges to ‘get to the bottom’ of the scandal.
One email from Epstein’s estate records also includes a bizarre birthday card in which Trump allegedly referred to a ‘secret’ he shared with Epstein — something the president also denies writing.
To Smith, that was telling: ‘Given his history — the beauty pageants, the creepy comments about young women — it’s not unreasonable to believe he knew what was happening.’
The Epstein revelations, Smith said, are likely to shake Trump’s support among evangelicals and religious conservatives — a core part of his MAGA base.
‘These are the same people who cooked up conspiracy theories like Pizzagate about Democrats running pedophile rings,’ Smith said.
‘Now the evidence points back to their own leader. That’s why this hits so hard.’
She predicted that if Democrats regain control of Congress in 2026, as some forecasters predict, a third impeachment could be on the table.
‘After last Tuesday’s strong anti-Trump vote, if we take back Congress next November, there’s no question impeachment could happen,’ Smith said.
She said lawmakers could probe business deals while Trump was in office and ‘covering up a criminal pedophile ring.’
The Daily Mail has obtained the unredacted email which reveals he was referring to Virginia Giuffre – who stated in her memoir that Trump never did anything wrong
Congress is set to vote next week on forcing Donald Trump’s Justice Department to release the Epstein files, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced Wednesday evening. (Pictured: Trump, Melania, Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell seen together in February 2000)
The emails released by House Democrats appear to show Trump’s closer proximity to Epstein than he’s ever admitted.
- A 2011 email from Epstein to Ghislaine Maxwell says Trump ‘spent hours at my house’ with a victim, whose name is redacted in the documents.
- A 2019 email from Epstein to author Michael Wolff reads: ‘Of course [Trump] knew about the girls, as he asked Ghislaine to stop,’ though the full context around this message is unclear.
- Additional estate documents reveal Epstein discussing media strategy about his friendship with Trump — and how to minimize damage if their ties became public.
The White House identified the victim mentioned as Virginia Giuffre, who died earlier this year, and who previously said Trump never did anything wrong.
None of the emails describe any actual wrongdoing, but Democrats say the records suggest a cover-up.
Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said the emails ‘raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding.’
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went further, accusing Republicans of ‘running a pedophile protection program’ by blocking full disclosure.
A Republican-led committee later released another 20,000 pages of Epstein records, claiming the three Trump emails were taken out of context.
But the controversy only deepened, with experts warning that the documents show disturbing familiarity between the two men.
So far, no criminal charges appear imminent. The alleged victim in the email — widely believed to be Giuffre, who died earlier this year — is no longer able to bring a case.
And New York’s special legal window for reviving expired sexual-assault claims has closed.
Virginia Giuffre (centre) outside a Manhattan court in 2019
In a third email, Wolff wrote to Epstein with the subject line ‘heads up’ on December 15, 2015 – the day of a Republican primary debate televised by CNN
In another email between Epstein and Wolff in January 2019, the convicted sex offender refers to his expulsion from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club
Former US Attorney Joyce Vance, writing in her Substack column, said the emails have hurt Trump’s credibility.
‘Given everything we know about Donald Trump, everything he himself has said about girls and women, it’s hard to imagine what innocent reason he had for spending hours with a victim of abuse at Epstein’s home,’ she wrote.
‘Trump has survived other moments like this — but he may not outlast the Epstein Files controversy.’
Others caution that while the emails raise troubling moral questions, they do not, on their own, constitute criminal evidence.
The Justice Department has not indicated any renewed investigation into Trump or other figures mentioned in the Epstein estate papers.
Still, the fallout is spreading fast across Capitol Hill.
Democrats are demanding the release of all Epstein-related materials, while some Republicans — particularly those in tight re-election races — are quietly distancing themselves from Trump.
Analysts say the affair could crack the once-monolithic MAGA coalition.
Evangelicals and family-values conservatives, already uneasy with Trump’s legal woes, may find the Epstein revelations impossible to defend.
The White House insists the uproar is pure politics.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of ‘selective leaking’ and ‘cherry-picking three emails out of 20,000 documents.’
‘These emails prove absolutely nothing other than that President Trump did nothing wrong,’ she said.
A satirical art installation representing President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands stands on the National Mall near the Capitol
Trump himself lashed out online, calling the reports a ‘Jeffrey Epstein hoax’ designed to distract from the ‘Democrats’ failures on everything else.’
Trump’s allies slammed the document dump as ‘a political hit job.’
It’s a script Americans have seen before: Trump faces scandal, cries hoax, and doubles down.
The question is whether this one — the most morally risky yet — will stick.
For years, Trump’s name has hovered on the edges of the Epstein saga.
Both men were fixtures of the same elite social scene, appearing together at Mar-a-Lago and in Palm Beach throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.
Trump once called Epstein a ‘terrific guy’ who ‘likes beautiful women as much as I do — and many of them are on the younger side.’
He later claimed they had a falling out and denied ever visiting Epstein’s homes.
Now, the paper trail says otherwise. And the political cost could be huge.
Epstein’s 2019 arrest and subsequent death in federal custody sparked global outrage over the apparent protection of the powerful that has not ebbed.
His black book and private flight logs listed dozens of celebrities, business titans, and politicians — including Trump, Bill Clinton, and Prince Andrew — fueling speculation about who knew what, and when. All the men have denied any wrongdoing.
If Democrats retake Congress in 2026, the Epstein emails will doubtless fuel many more committee meetings — and perhaps even a record-breaking third impeachment about perhaps America’s most far-reaching sex scandal.
