President Trump’s long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein came to an apparent end in the mid-2000s. But Mr. Epstein remained intently focused on Mr. Trump for years afterward, seeking to exploit the remnants of their relationship up until his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
In more than 20,000 pages of Mr. Epstein’s typo-strewn emails and other messages released by a congressional committee on Wednesday, Mr. Epstein insulted Mr. Trump and hinted that he had damaging information on him.
By turns gossipy, scathing and scheming, the messages show influential people pressing Mr. Epstein for insight into Mr. Trump, and Mr. Epstein casting himself as the ultimate Trump translator, someone who knew him intimately and was “the one able to take him down.”
The release of the messages instantly pushed the two men’s much-scrutinized relationship back into the public eye, re-energizing Democratic attacks on Mr. Trump and his Justice Department for failing to publicly disclose more information from the investigation of Mr. Epstein.
The emails date to at least 2011, when Mr. Trump was a reality TV star toying with a long-shot presidential run and Mr. Epstein was trying to rehabilitate his image after his conviction and incarceration for soliciting prostitution from a minor. The messages continue through the spring of 2019, when Mr. Trump was president and his Justice Department was building a criminal case against Mr. Epstein.
The messages hint that Mr. Epstein or his advisers believed they had inside — and potentially damaging — knowledge of Mr. Trump’s far-flung properties and business dealings. Some suggest that Mr. Epstein thought Mr. Trump knew more about his personal conduct than the president has publicly acknowledged.
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