Published 12/11/2025 16:30 | Edited 12/11/2025 18:42
Just hours before the vote that is expected to end the longest government shutdown in the United States, House Democrats released new emails from Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who had ties to figures from the political and financial elite — including President Donald Trump.
The documents, exchanged between Epstein, his girlfriend and accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell and writer Michael Wolff, indicate that Trump “knew about the girls” and even “spent hours” with one of the victims. Trump has repeatedly denied any involvement in or knowledge of his friend’s sex trafficking activities.
While markets reacted positively to the expectation of the government’s reopening, American politics was once again shaken by the ghost of Epstein — a scandal that Trump has been trying for years to bury under accusations of manipulation and partisan persecution.
“The dog that didn’t bark is Trump”
In a 2011 email sent to Maxwell more than a year after he served time, Epstein wrote:
“I want you to realize that that dog that didn’t bark is Trump. [Nome da vítima] spent hours at my house with him, he was never mentioned.”
Maxwell’s response was dry:
“I’ve been thinking about this…”
Democrats claim that the exchange of messages reinforces Trump’s deliberate inaction in the face of a sexual exploitation scheme that he knew about and tolerated. In another message from 2019, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls when he asked Ghislaine to stop” the trafficking of women.
Silence, denial and manipulation
The White House responded by saying the emails were “selectively released.”
Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt insisted that Trump made “no mistakes” and went so far as to allege that he “kicked Epstein out” of his Mar-a-Lago club.
But the official version contrasts with years of public proximity: photos, party and travel records show that Trump and Epstein frequented the same circle of power for decades.
The former president’s silence, combined with his refusal to disclose Epstein’s files during his government, supports suspicions of cover-up and complicity.
UPDATE: Hours after the emails were revealed, House Republicans released 23,000 pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate online, after months of delays. The documents were obtained through a subpoena in August. The press is rushing to verify possible revelations contained, but has already noted that the emails between Epstein and friends were full of disqualifications and ridicule of Trump. Democrats believe that the whirlwind of documents was released to minimize the effect of the day’s scandal.
“Epstein class” and the portrait of the American elite
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna reacted with outrage to the content of the messages:
“This whole Epstein class needs to go. These are rich, powerful people who knew about the abuse and did nothing.”
Khanna associated the case with the culture of impunity that pervades the US political system, where alliances, donations and influence outweigh the law. The “Epstein class”, according to him, represents the toxic fusion between power, money and silence — an armored elite that protects itself, regardless of party.
The Trump pattern: deny, attack and project blame
Trump responded with the strategy that made him predictable: denial, victimization and attack.
He accused Democrats of “fabricating narratives” and trying to “destroy the patriots who love the country.”
The speech, however, no longer masks the central contradiction: the same man who promised to “drain the Washington swamp” is accused of representing the swamp itself — dirty power, unpunished privilege, the pact between billionaires and predators.
Some activists — many Trump supporters — have been calling for the release of all government documents related to Epstein for years. But the Trump administration has refused to make Epstein’s so-called files public, citing victims’ privacy. Earlier, he promised his supporters to bring the files to light.
At the beginning of this year, the The Wall Street Journal published what it said was a sexually suggestive birthday card that Trump sent to Epstein with a message written inside a drawing of a naked woman. Trump denied writing or drawing the card and sued the newspaper over the allegation.
In June, after billionaire former White House aide Elon Musk broke with the US president, he said: “the real reason” Trump has not released the “Epstein files” is that he is named in them.
Epstein, symbol of the moral decadence of an elite
The Epstein case has always been more than a story of sexual crimes.
He is a mirror of the moral decadence of an elite that believes it can buy silence, loyalty and oblivion. By trying to distance himself from Epstein, Trump reveals the fragility of a leader built on self-promotion and denialism.
As the country tries to reopen its government, the emails reignite a political and ethical wound: that of a system that protects the powerful and abandons the victims.
At the center of this scandal is Trump again — not just as a character, but as a symbol of a power that refuses to answer for its own crimes.
“The more Donald Trump tries to cover up the Epstein files, the more we uncover. These latest emails and correspondence raise stark questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President,” House Representative Robert Garcia, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Source: vermelho.org.br
