A bombshell, now unredacted, email appears to contradict Donald Trump’s repeated claim that he expelled Jeffrey Epstein from Mar-a-Lago.
The 2009 email from Epstein’s attorney, Jack Goldberger, was largely blacked out by the Justice Department before being released in its Epstein files dump.
But New York Rep. Dan Goldman said on the House floor Wednesday that he had viewed the unredacted version, displaying a large board showing what he described as the full email.
The email showcased by Goldman, a Democrat, suggests that Epstein was “never asked to leave” Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and features Trump saying he “may have been” on Epstein’s plane, as well as at Epstein’s house.
In the email, Goldberger appears to have summarized a “20-minute phone conference” with Trump, Trump’s attorney Alan Garten, and a person named “Brad,” presumably Brad Edwards, who has represented Epstein’s victims. Goldberger wrote that the conference was conducted “in lieu of a depo.”
The email appears to contradict Trump’s repeated claim that he expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, a story the White House has leaned on as details of the president’s close friendship with Epstein have surfaced.
Responding to whether Epstein was ever expelled from Mar-a-Lago, Garten allegedly replied, “No he was not a member. May have been his guest. Never asked to leave.”
Goldberger’s email notes that the person referred to as “Brad” had talked to a manager at Mar-a-Lago, who confirmed that “JE never asked to leave Mar a Lago.”
According to the email, Trump was asked to respond to Epstein’s brother Mark’s claim that Trump flew on the convicted sex offender’s plane, the infamous “Lolita Express.”
“I’ve been on a lot of planes. May have been on his plane. No young girls on plane,” the future president allegedly said.
Asked if he was ever at Epstein’s house, Trump said, “I may have been there with my wife.” Depending on the timeframe, Trump could have been referring to any of his three wives and ex-wives—Ivana Trump, Marla Maples, or Melania Trump.
“Any young girls there?” he was apparently asked.
“No may have been children of guests but that’s it,” he allegedly replied.
Trump, who appears thousands of times in the Epstein files, has said that he wasn’t “friendly” with Epstein and was “never” on his plane.
But the president is named in flight logs of the pedophile’s plane, and countless photographs and videos show them partying together in New York and Florida. Trump and Epstein socialized together beginning in the 1980s until sometime in the 2000s.
The 79-year-old president told reporters last July that he cut ties with Epstein after the pedophile “stole” female workers from his exclusive Florida members club. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has often pushed back against scrutiny of Trump’s relationship with Epstein by proclaiming, “President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep.”
But Goldberger’s email raises doubts about their assertions, and according to Mar-a-Lago membership documents seen by the authors of The Grifter’s Club: Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the Selling of the Presidency, Epstein was a member of the club until October 2007, more than a year after he was indicted for soliciting prostitution.
In his speech on the House floor, Goldman accused Trump of making “false statements over the past quarter century about Jeffrey Epstein” and slammed Attorney General Pam Bondi for her department’s redactions to the email.
“The reason why this matters is because we don’t have half of the Epstein files,” he said, noting that the DOJ identified 6 million Epstein files for potential release but has only disclosed about 3.5 million.
“If the attorney general is covering up this information that she then reveals to Congress, what else is she covering up about Donald Trump’s involvement in the Epstein files?” he asked.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Justice Department and the White House for comment.
