Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson stated in a CNN interview last week that the House Oversight Committee's probe into the Epstein files made requests for the records' release a "moot point." Wolff and Johnson's remarks were made a few days and hours before minority Democrats on the Oversight Committee published the emails that included Wolff, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Epstein.
This week, the biographer made an appearance on the Daily Beast podcast in an episode titled "Epstein Files are About to Spill Into Open," which aired around twelve hours before the emails.
In one of the emails Epstein sent Wolff, dated January 2019, the late sex offender apparently wrote:
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever...of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop.”
Later, in an email dated December 15, 2015, Wolff seemed to counsel Epstein on how to deal with Trump as he prepared for the 2016 presidential election.
“What will happen, theoretically, is that the House will vote to subpoena the Epstein files…”
he explained.
“So they are going to subpoena something, but they don't know what they are subpoenaing and then it will be they'll have to figure out exactly what that is.”
He continued that the documents related to the Epstein case are dispersed across U.S. government departments.
“It will be sort of up to Congress to kind of…define what they're looking for,”
he said.
Johnson stated that calls for the release of the remaining papers were "a moot point" because Democrats on the House Oversight Committee had already revealed a "treasure trove" of records during an appearance on CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper on Monday.
Epstein replied:
“If we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be?”
“I think you should let him hang himself,”
Wolff replied to Epstein, according to the email.
“If he says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.”
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you, or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt,”
Wolff apparently continued.
“Of course, it is possible that, when asked, he’ll say Jeffrey is a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime.”
The dispute has been rekindled by the most recent document release.
Wolff informed the disgraced financier via email on December 15, 2015, the night of a Republican presidential primary debate, that CNN was "planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you – either on air or in scrum afterwards."
Other emails discovered in the most recent release included one from April 2011 in which Epstein told Maxwell that Trump had "spent hours" with a redacted victim.
The late Virginia Guiffre was the victim, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who also accused the Democrats of running a "smear" campaign.
Leavitt went on to say that Democrats utilized the "selectively leaked emails" to "create a fake narrative."
How are House Democrats framing Wolff Epstein emails?
House Egalitarians are framing the Wolff- Epstein emails as raising serious questions about former President Donald Trump's knowledge of and relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, including allegations that Trump" knew about the girls" involved in Epstein's coitus trafficking operation.
Representative Robert Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, stated that the emails" raise striking questions about what differently the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President."
At the same time, Egalitarians stress the significance of continuing examinations into how Epstein’s networks operated and who may have been complicit or apprehensive. The framing suggests a narrative of ongoing concealment by Trump’s abettors varied with Egalitarians’ efforts to reveal the full variety.