What we've covered
• Today’s release: The House Oversight Committee has released an additional 20,000 pages of documents the GOP-led panel received from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose death by suicide spawned intense scrutiny of the high-profile people he knew. CNN reporters went through the files and posted their findings below.
• What we’ve found: Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell coordinated their public response to a 2015 lawsuit brought by an anonymous woman later revealed to be Virginia Roberts Giuffre. In an interview with the Justice Department this summer, Maxwell had said her relationship with Epstein was “almost nonexistent” between 2010 and 2019 outside of corresponding over legal matters.
• Epstein insults of Trump: Epstein wrote that, “I know how dirty Donald is,” referring to potential scandals that might come out about Trump in an August 2018 email to Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Epstein also emailed about Trump’s mental state with his personal attorney and Ruemmler in March 2018.
• White House pushes back: Press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the emails, saying they prove “nothing.” Trump accused Democrats of bringing up Epstein to “deflect” from their handling of the government shutdown.
• The deciding vote: Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress after 50 days of waiting and then signed the discharge petition to release the Epstein case files.
Mace confirms again she'll keep name on discharge petition: "The work is too important"
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace confirmed again to CNN’s Jake Tapper Wednesday night she was keeping her name on the petition to force a House vote to compel the release of Jeffrey Epstein files, saying in a text message, “The work is too important.”
“I will never turn my back on other survivors. The work is too important. No one believes us. And we never get justice,” she wrote.
Earlier, Mace had posted on Twitter about being a survivor of sexual and domestic violence, saying that while she supported Trump, “I will NEVER abandon other survivors.”
Boebert and Mace say Trump didn't ask them to take names off of Epstein petition
Two of the four Republicans who signed onto the petition to force a vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files said President Donald Trump had not personally lobbied them to remove their names.
Rep. Lauren Boebert described her meeting at the White House with administration officials on Wednesday, telling CNN’s Manu Raju “we were certainly talking about things,” when asked if she was urged to take her name off of the petition, but adding that she also spoke with Attorney General Pam Bondi about gun laws.
Asked about the administration’s message on the handling of the Epstein case, Boebert said, “I think that everybody hears the message every single day,” adding, “I don’t believe that anybody is misleading me by any means.”
She said she encouraged Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to meet with Epstein’s victims and they were “interested.”
Boebert said she did not speak with Trump at the White House and said he “never asked me to take my name off of the discharge petition.”
“The president has not forced me to do anything. The president has not put pressure on me. I was not asked by the president to remove my name, every conversation that I had was welcomed and very civil. And, you know, it’s okay for people to have discussions about things that are going on with our nation,” she said.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace told Raju she last talked to Trump on Friday and has played “phone tag” with him over the past 24 hours, and that he “has not” asked her to take her name off of the Epstein petition.
Johnson says House will vote next week on whether to release Epstein files
Speaker Mike Johnson announced to reporters on Wednesday that he will put a bill requiring the release of the Jeffrey Epstein case files on the floor next week – earlier than expected.
“We’re going to put that on the floor for a full vote when we get back next week,” Johnson said.
“In the meantime I’ll remind everybody the Oversight Committee has been working around the clock” on its own investigation, the speaker said.
Johnson is required to put the bill from Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and GOP Rep. Thomas Massie on the floor soon, now that their discharge petition has reached 218 signatures. But he has some leeway to do so, and Johnson suggested Wednesday he would not use that extra time.
Johnson said they are still working on the floor schedule for next week, but want to bring up the measure “as soon as possible.”
He added they may take the vote under a rule, but are working to see if it could come up under suspension, which would require 2/3 of the House to vote for it. “We haven’t figured that out yet,” said Johnson.
Pressed on why he decided to bring it up now instead of waiting until the discharge petition forced the measure to the floor, Johnson replied, “It’s a totally pointless exercise. It’s completely moot now. We might as well just do it. I mean, they have 218 signatures, that’s fine, we’ll do it.”
Epstein survivor pushes for release of full case files
One Jeffrey Epstein survivor said she just wants to see justice be served, and while today’s release of 20,000 pages of documents was a step in the right direction, the full Epstein case files need to be made public.
“I think that in releasing these emails this morning, it really is just driving the point home of how badly we need this information released. We need the government to release everything that’s in these files,” Liz Stein told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Stein, an anti-trafficking advocate, said it’s upsetting to survivors that “this is so politicized when it’s not a political issue.”
“This was a crime, and it’s a crime of sex trafficking and we really just want to see justice for the crime that happened to us,” she said.
Still, there has been a “renewed sense of hope” among Epstein survivors today. Stein was among those in the House gallery when Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress and became the decisive 218th member to sign a discharge petition to force the House to vote on releasing the full case files.
“It was just an incredible moment for us to see her sworn in and to see her sign the discharge petition. It’s something we’ve been waiting for for 50 days,” Stein said. She also thanked Republican members who supported the petition, despite pressure from the Trump administration.
Legal expert explains why Epstein's emails are "very reliable on their face"
Mimi Rocah, an adjunct legal professor and former district attorney of Westchester County, New York, said documents like Jeffrey Epstein’s emails released today by lawmakers are “inherently reliable.”
Many of the emails were conversations between Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime Epstein contact and convicted child sex trafficker.
While President Donald Trump has been named in some of the emails released today, he has not been accused of a crime. Still, Rocah said the people corresponding in the documents were talking about Trump in a “very incriminating way.”
CNN has reported that Maxwell may be preparing to request clemency from Trump. Rocah said if the president grants that, “I actually think it would be the biggest sign that there is something more in addition to these emails, which are already quite incriminating, that she could say about him.”
Mace sent direct message to Trump explaining support of Epstein discharge petition, source says
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace sent a direct message to President Donald Trump on Wednesday outlining why she supported the Epstein discharge petition and why the matter is so personal for her, according to a source familiar with the message.
Mace’s note to Trump largely mirrored her public statement, the source added, which details Mace’s personal history with sexual assault and domestic violence.
Mace and Trump had been playing phone tag for the last 24 hours, CNN previously reported.
“The Epstein petition is deeply personal. When I was 14 I was molested by a friend of one of my coaches and sexually assaulted at 16. I was violently mugged months later. I dropped out of high school at 17 because I had nothing left to give. But God helped me turn things around,” Mace said in her public statement. “”Two years ago I became a survivor of sexual and domestic violence once more to my utter shock, dismay and embarrassment.”
The discharge petition on Wednesday reached the 218 signatures needed to force such a vote and in turn trigger a number of procedural steps before the House can vote on a bill compelling the Epstein files’ release.
Massie predicts GOP support will “snowball” when Epstein bill hits floor in early December
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie predicted support within his party for his legislation to make the Justice Department release the Jeffrey Epstein case files will “snowball” now that he has enough support on a petition to force a vote next month.
Though Trump was pressuring GOP signatories to remove their names from the petition, Massie explained that the names are now locked in and Speaker Mike Johnson will now have to schedule a vote.
Rep. Don Bacon was the latest in a growing chorus of House Republicans who suggested he plans on voting to release the files.
“I’m not gonna vote against being transparent,” he said, explaining that he already thinks the House is being “transparent” in the oversight panel’s probe, “but if it’s going to come up and it’s gonna be White House, release all you got, yeah I’m gonna vote for that.”
Though Bacon said he would vote for the Epstein bill, he warned “it’s a bit of a red herring,” since it would still have to pass a 60-vote threshold in the Senate and be signed into law by President Donald Trump.
The Nebraska Republican also criticized the White House’s handling of the whole Epstein issue, calling it “the worst PR job I’ve seen anywhere.”
Background: Newly sworn in Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was the 218th signature on Massie’s petition that sets up a vote on his bipartisan bill forcing the release of the DOJ’s Epstein case files.
In sign of growing agitation, GOP lawmaker attempts to force Epstein vote on floor
A frustrated GOP Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee went rogue on Wednesday as he took to the House floor in an attempt to force an expedited vote on a contentious bill to require Congress to release the Epstein files.
His push was denied because it did not follow the proper parliamentary steps.
But it’s a reflection of the growing sense of agitation among congressional Republicans, now that the Epstein files bill has reached the 218 signatures necessary to force a vote on the floor through another parliamentary move, known as a discharge petition.
“Just get it to the daggum floor and let the people decide,” Burchett said when asked about his move on the floor.
“I’m tired of messing around. The Democrats have had the Epstein files for four years, and now we’ve got it for nine months, and it’s going to be dragged into a bunch of nonsense. Let’s just take it to the floor. Let’s vote on it. Let’s get on with it,” Burchett said.
Burchett has said he wants further transparency of the Epstein files though he has not signed onto the discharge petition.
Burchett claimed his request was blocked by Democrats — which he said reflected that it was “100 percent” about politics — but in truth, a Republican on the floor had actually declined his request because he had not received the proper sign-off from leaders of both parties before making the unanimous consent request. That UC move is typically used to expedite noncontroversial legislation and is typically cleared by party leaders beforehand.
The senior Republican in charge of the House floor at the time, Rep. Steve Womack of Arkansas, rejected his request, stating it “it is not a proper inquiry” because he said it must be “cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships.”
Key things to know about the Epstein emails released today
About 20,000 more pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate were released publicly today by the House Oversight Committee.
Epstein mentioned Donald Trump by name multiple times in emails over the last 15 years with an associate and an author in Trump’s orbit.
Trump today called the saga a “hoax” and blasted Democrats for releasing the emails in a fiery post to his Truth Social platform.
Here are some of the key things to know:
- What to know about the documents: The emails were obtained by the Oversight Committee them after the panel subpoenaed Epstein’s estate earlier this year. A first tranche of records from the estate were released by the committee in September.
- What the White House is saying: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the release of Epstein’s emails that mentioned Trump “prove absolutely nothing, other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong.”
- “Dog that hasn’t barked”: In one email dated April 2, 2011, Epstein emailed his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell: “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.. REDACTED spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there”. GOP members of the House Oversight committee identified the person as Virginia Giuffre.
- Mar-a-Lago Club: There were also emails between Epstein and author Michael Wolff, including one from January 2019 during Trump’s first term: “trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever. . of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop”. This was apparently to address Trump’s claim that he asked Epstein to resign his membership at the president’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
- Comments on Trump: Epstein called Trump “borderline insane” in a 2018 email exchange with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. In another email to a New York Times reporter on January 28, 2017, a week after Trump signed an executive order banning the entry of foreign nationals from Muslim majority countries for 90 days, Epstein said, “Donald is f**king crazy.”
- Potential scandals: Epstein wrote that, “I know how dirty Donald is,” referring to potential scandals that might come out about Trump in an August 2018 email to Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Epstein also emailed about Trump’s mental state with his personal attorney and Ruemmler in March 2018.
- Coordinated response: Several email exchanges on January 10, 2015, appear to show Epstein and Maxwell coordinating their public response to a lawsuit from a woman — later revealed to be Giuffre — alleging that Epstein and Maxwell groomed and sexually abused her between 1998 and 2002.
- Meantime in the House: Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress after 50 days of waiting and then signed the discharge petition to release the Epstein case files. Grijalva became the decisive 218th member to force the House to vote on the issue.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Marshall Cohen, Em Steck, Donald Judd, Andrew Kaczynski and Marshall Cohen contributed reporting to this post.
Epstein said he "gave" his young girlfriend to Trump in the 1990s. Trump has denied wrongdoing
Many of the exchanges from the emails feature people implying Epstein had damaging information about Trump and suggesting that he go public with it.
Epstein generally didn’t engage with these suggestions. But at one point in late 2015, he told a New York Times reporter that he could produce “photos [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.”
Later in the same email string, Epstein also alluded to a woman he claimed both he and Trump had dated in the 1990s.
“my 20 year old girlfriend in 1993, , that after two years i gave to donald,” Epstein said, linking to a webpage featuring the woman.
A previously published lewd 2003 birthday album for Epstein’s 50th birthday alluded to a similar situation. It included a joke about Epstein having sold “a ‘fully depreciated’ woman to Donald Trump.”
Trump says the documents are a “hoax” and has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Epstein survivors will have another press conference on Capitol Hill next week
Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors are planning to gather on Capitol Hill next Tuesday for another press conference, sources tell CNN, where they plan to once again ratchet up the pressure on lawmakers to vote to release the Epstein files.
The gathering would mark the second such press conference this year featuring Epstein’s victims in Washington, DC. It comes days after a discharge petition to force a vote in the House received its last necessary signature. That signature came from newly sworn-in Rep. Adelita Grijalva or Arizona on Wednesday.
Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, led the effort on the discharge petition. Massie, Khanna and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who signed the petition, are among the lawmakers expected to attend next week’s press conference, according to one of the sources.
Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Nancy Mace of South Carolina also signed the petition.
Rep. Nancy Mace on discharge petition: "I will NEVER abandon other survivors”
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace has released a statement following the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition reaching 218 signatures, saying “I will NEVER abandon other survivors” and vowing to “defend every last attack on President Trump to the death, everywhere.”
Mace is one of four Republicans who signed the petition.
Epstein corresponded with Steve Bannon about then-Prince Andrew and Trump
In early June 2019, President Trump made a state visit to the United Kingdom, where he was welcomed by the former Prince Andrew. A photo shows Andrew grinning as he shakes Trump’s hand.
In a June 2019 email exchange with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, Jeffrey Epstein wrote, “prince andrew and trump today.. Tooo [sic] funny.” And then he added, “recall prince andrews accuser came out of mara lago [sic].”
Bannon replied, “Can’t believe nobody is making u [sic] the connective tissue.”
Bannon’s identity is redacted in the messages released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, but a source confirmed to CNN’s Jake Tapper that the prominent Trump ally sent them.
It’s unclear what exactly Bannon meant by the message. Trump fired him from the White House in 2017, though Bannon remained influential in conservative politics as he does today.
Trump and Andrew socialized together in the 1990s and 2000s, per newspaper reports, alongside Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, sometimes at Mar-A-Lago. King Charles stripped Andrew of his prince title in October.
CNN reached out to Bannon for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Johnson dismisses Epstein emails that mention Trump: “It’s a massive distraction by the Democrats”
Speaker Mike Johnson brushed aside new findings that Jeffrey Epstein mentioned President Donald Trump by name multiple times in private emails when asked by CNN on Wednesday.
“I think it’s a massive distraction by the Democrats while we’re trying to get the government reopened and cover for their mistakes. I find it interesting that the press corps didn’t ask all these questions for four years during the Biden administration,” Johnson said, asked by CNN if the speaker had any concerns about the new findings.
Pressed by CNN why Congress shouldn’t release all Epstein documents when the president himself has said he supports doing so, Johnson said: “He is for maximum transparency. He said it as recently as a couple of days ago, and I talked to him about it today. He’s for everything coming out.”
As that Epstein pressure builds, two more House Republicans — GOP Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio and Eli Crane of Arizona — told CNN they plan to vote for the bill to release the Epstein files when it comes to the floor. Neither had signed the discharge petition.
Asked by CNN if he planned to support the bill on the floor, Crane said: “Yeah. I told you I would, yep.”
Other Republicans, however, remain staunchly opposed.
Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana told Raju “I’m a vote against” the Epstein transparency bill.
“My understanding and I’ve looked into it extensively is that the president didn’t like that guy, he had no friendly relationships with him. You can’t control who takes a picture with you,” Higgins told CNN.
Newly sworn in Rep. Adelita Grijalva signs Epstein discharge petition, locking in 218 votes needed
Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva has signed the discharge petition to force a vote compelling the Department of Justice to release all of its case files related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Grijalva, who was sworn in as the House’s newest member just moments before, provided the 218th signature.
The congresswoman’s support locks in the votes needed to allow the petition to move forward – despite a last minute pressure campaign from the White House to try and remove some of the GOP signers.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva is sworn in and says she will sign discharge petition to release Epstein files
After 50 days of waiting, Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress Wednesday, bringing an end to a contentious chapter in the US House of Representatives that included a lawsuit and rising tensions inside the Capitol over her seating.
The timing of her swearing-in had also been closely watched because she is poised to become the decisive 218th member in support of an effort to force the House to vote on the release of all of the Epstein case files.
In remarks on the House floor, Grijalva said she would sign the discharge petition “right now to release the Epstein files. Justice cannot wait another day.”
She also thanked two Epstein survivors who were in the gallery for her swearing in.
“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged. It’s past time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people,” Grijalva said.
Speaker Mike Johnson had said he would not swear in the Arizona Democrat amid the government shutdown until the House returned to legislative session. The swearing-in took place after the chamber reconvened to vote on a Senate-passed bill to reopen the government.
Watch the moment:
After 50 days of waiting, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) was sworn into Congress Wednesday, bringing an end to a contentious chapter in the US House of Representatives that included a lawsuit and rising tensions inside the Capitol over her seating.
This post has been updated with remarks from Grijalva.
Jeffrey Epstein in 2018: "I know how dirty Donald is"
In an August 2018 email to Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, Epstein wrote that, “I know how dirty Donald is,” referring to potential scandals that might come out about Donald Trump.
Epstein sent the message on August 23, 2018, after Trump’s longtime fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to federal campaign finances crimes. As part of a cooperation deal with prosecutors, Cohen implicated Trump in a 2016 hush-money scheme involving payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair, which Trump denies.
“You see, I know how dirty Donald is,” Epstein wrote in the email. “My guess is that non-lawyers NY biz people have no idea what it means to have your fixer flip.”
The email conversation began when Ruemmler sent Epstein a New York Times column about the Cohen guilty plea and what it might mean for Trump.
Her email said, “The principled case for impeachment is clear. What’s missing is the courage,” quoting the column.
Trump was not impeached and he never faced any federal charges over the matter despite a lengthy investigation. However, the Manhattan district attorney later won an indictment of Trump on state charges in connection with the matter. Trump was convicted last year of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payments.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly attributed a quote to Ruemmler.
Epstein emailed Prince Andrew: "you ok?"
In March 2011, as the Epstein scandal was picked up by British tabloids focusing on Prince Andrew’s involvement, Epstein reached out to Andrew to ask how he was doing.
“you ok?” Epstein wrote to an email identified as “The Duke,” an apparent reference to Andrew, known at the time as the Duke of York. “these stories are complete ant (sic) utter fantasy.”
King Charles stripped Andrew of his prince title last month and forced him to move out of the royal residence. Andrew relinquished his title as Duke of York weeks beforehand.
Epstein questioned whether Trump had "early dementia"
In early January 2018, as questions swirled about Trump’s behavior following the release of Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury,” Epstein exchanged a series of emails with a reporter at The New York Times discussing the president’s mental state.
Epstein sent the reporter an excerpt of the book that ran in New York Magazine.
The reporter remarked that Trump was “looking/sounding increasingly unhinged,” Epstein replies, “no questions donalds statement is goofy. . early dementia?”
Boebert not expected to remove her name from discharge petition; Mace, Trump playing phone tag, source says
GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert is not expected to remove her name from the petition that would force a vote on compelling the administration to release all the Jeffrey Epstein case files after a meeting at the White House, a source familiar with the meeting told CNN.
Boebert had previously told CNN’s Manu Raju as much on September 16, saying “no” when asked if there was “any way you take your name off the Epstein discharge petition?” She also said at the time, “I’m not getting pressured” from the White House.
Separately, President Donald Trump and GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, another GOP signer on the petition, have been playing phone tag. Mace previously told CNN’s Raju rumors that she were planning to remove her name from the petition were untrue.
Boebert and Mace are two of three Republicans who are supportive of an effort from Reps. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, to force a vote on the release of the files on the House floor. The pair is set to receive the 218th decisive signature from Rep. Adelita Grijalva Wednesday afternoon, allowing the push to force a vote to move forward.
Asked at Wednesday’s press briefing about the meeting with Boebert, press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded: “Doesn’t it show transparency that members of the Trump administration are willing to brief members of Congress whenever they please? Doesn’t that show our level of transparency? Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns? That is, that’s a defining factor of transparency, having discussions, having discussions with members of Congress about various issues. And I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation Room, in the press briefing room.”
CNN has reached out to Boebert for comment.
