New Jeffrey Epstein files rekindle an old Trump political problem

President Donald Trump can’t seem to escape Jeffrey Epstein.

President Donald Trump can’t seem to escape Jeffrey Epstein. All summer, the Trump administration tried to brush back questions, including from allies, around its handling of the late financier’s case. The issue quieted down for over the past few weeks, with the government shut down and Congress preoccupied.

But it reemerged Wednesday, just as the shutdown is set to end. The latest twist comes at an inopportune time for Trump, with the president already in the midst of criticism from longtime supporters over his economic rhetoric and policy proposals in the wake of Republican candidates being routed in last week’s off-year elections.

Trump’s name is featured multiple times in a trove of 20,000-plus documents related to Epstein released by Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

“[Y]ou see, I know how dirty donald is,” Epstein wrote about Trump’s business practices in a 2018 email to Kathy Ruemmler, the former White House counsel for President Barack Obama, when longtime Trump confidant Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges. “My guess is that non lawyers ny biz people have no idea. What it means to have your fixer flip.”

Epstein killed himself in a New York prison in August 2019, after being charged with sex-trafficking minors. He refused to answer whether he had “ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of females under the age of 18” in a March 2010 deposition cited in the files released Wednesday — a deposition in which he declined to answer a series of questions based on various Constitutional rights. The documents were obtained by the committee from Epstein’s estate as part of its ongoing investigation into the federal government’s handling of his crimes.