Democrats are “whipping their base into a frenzy,” with lies, concocted narratives and selectively redacted documents that attempt to tie President Trump to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Republicans said Monday.
Congress is on the verge of voting to force the Trump Justice Department to release the Epstein files, and Republicans say that the evidence released so far shows Mr. Trump did not participate or know about the late financier’s sex trafficking of dozens of underage girls.
In a memo to Republicans, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer said Democrats on the panel mischaracterized witness testimony and released Epstein emails with blacked-out words that attempt to make Mr. Trump look like he was involved in Epstein’s victimization of the girls.
Mr. Comer compared the effort to the yearslong narrative by Democrats that the president colluded with the Russians to win the White House in the 2016 election. That investigation produced no evidence of collusion by Mr. Trump or his campaign with Russians.
Documents released by Mr. Trump in his second term show the Obama administration’s FBI and CIA relied on the unverified, rumor-based Steele dossier to spy on the Trump campaign and make the case that Moscow helped Mr. Trump win the election.
Republicans say Democrats are peddling a new hoax, this one involving Mr. Trump and his connection to Epstein.
SEE ALSO: Trump shifts stance and now tells House Republicans to vote to release Epstein files
“Committee Democrats have overpromised and underdelivered, and now they paw through every new document production looking for a single term: Trump,” Mr. Comer wrote. “The problem for the Democrats is that there is just nothing here. Like Russiagate, the Steele Dossier, and phony prosecutions before it, the Democrats will devise or amplify any conspiratorial mirage before engaging President Trump in a conversation about how to better the lives of the American people.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight panel, did not immediately respond to a request for a response to Mr. Comer.
Mr. Comer accused Democrats of selectively releasing documents and emails to make it appear that Mr. Trump was involved in the sex trafficking scheme.
Democrats last week redacted and published a 2019 email Epstein sent to Trump biographer Michael Wolff.
Democrats blacked out the name of the Epstein victim, the late Virginia Giuffre, who in her memoir said she never saw Mr. Trump act inappropriately.
The email from Epstein to Mr. Wolff said: “Of course” Mr. Trump “knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.”
SEE ALSO: Critics scoff at Trump’s shift to urging House GOP to vote to release Epstein files
Mr. Comer said the sentence references Epstein’s girlfriend and sex trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who recruited Giuffre, a Mar-a-Lago club employee, in the club’s parking lot.
Mr. Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for trying to hire young women who worked at his club.
“This changes the meaning in Epstein’s email where he states ’of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop,” Mr. Comer wrote.
Democrats scored a victory on Sunday in their quest to force the release of all of the Epstein documents. The president, after weeks of pressure from Democrats and a handful of Republicans, called on Congress to pass a measure that would force the Justice Department to make public all of the files from their investigation and prosecution of Epstein.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was arrested in July 2019 and faced federal sex trafficking charges. A month later, he was found dead in a New York City jail cell. Officials said he committed suicide. Maxwell was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls and is serving a 20-year sentence.
Mr. Trump promised to release the Epstein files during his 2024 presidential campaign, but only some of the documents have been made public by the Justice Department, which is constrained by a federal judge’s order to keep many of the files away from the public.
The president had pressured House Republicans to block a resolution by Democrats that would force a vote to release the files. Democrats said Mr. Trump’s opposition to the resolution indicated he was attempting to hide his own involvement in Epstein’s sex crimes.
“America overwhelmingly supports the survivors’ demand for complete disclosure of what the government knows about the billion-dollar Epstein global trafficking ring. Stop the excuses and deflection. Release the files,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat, said Monday.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump reversed his stance and declared that lawmakers “should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.”
The president said the Justice Department has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the House Oversight Committee, which has posted the information online.
The House panel released an additional 22,000 pages last week that it obtained through a subpoena of the Epstein estate. The documents showed Mr. Epstein remained fixated on Trump but had no communications with him.
The emails exposed Epstein’s relationship with prominent Democrats, members of the media and Delegate Stacey Plaskett, a nonvoting House Democrat representing the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“The Department of Justice has already turned over tens of thousands of pages to the Public on ’Epstein,’ are looking at various Democrat operatives (Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman, Larry Summers, etc.) and their relationship to Epstein, and the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to, I don’t care!” Mr. Trump said on social media.
