The Democrats are desperate right now. Their party is facing a civil war over their caving on the Schumer Shutdown, and they needed a distraction. So, they played the Epstein card. The House Oversight Committee's Democratic minority dropped a trove of emails from Epstein's estate, hoping to manufacture a Trump controversy that might distract from their humiliating government shutdown defeat. Instead, they got a master class in how not to execute a political hit job.
The Democrats' latest attempt to tie Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein backfired spectacularly Wednesday when even the mainstream media couldn't spin the released emails into anything resembling a legitimate scandal.
A 2015 email reveals something Democrats didn't want to highlight: anti-Trump author Michael Wolff actively soliciting dirt from Epstein during the presidential campaign. Wolff suggested Epstein could either "hang" or "save" Trump depending on how media narratives played out. He tried coaching Epstein on weaponizing alleged information about Trump using Epstein's plane or visiting his home for political advantage. This says far more about the desperate lengths Trump's enemies were willing to go to blackmail Trump than anything about Trump himself.
Then there's the 2019 email that Democrats thought would be their smoking gun. Epstein told Wolff that Trump claimed he asked Epstein to resign from Mar-a-Lago and stated, "Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop." Democrats salivated over that phrase, but the context demolishes their narrative. NBC News, hardly a Trump-friendly outlet, acknowledged that the email actually is about Trump severing his relationship with Epstein and banning him for inappropriate behavior, including poaching Mar-a-Lago employees.
Related: The Democrats’ Latest Trump-Epstein 'Bombshell' Actually Vindicates Trump
ABC News even admitted the released emails failed to substantiate allegations against Trump. The Associated Press went even further, dedicating significant space to explaining why the emails aren't incriminating at all. The AP report noted that Virginia Giuffre "had long insisted that Trump was not among the men who had victimized her" and that "other members of Epstein's household staff also said in sworn depositions that, while Trump did stop by Epstein's house, they didn't see him engage in any inappropriate conduct."
Did the fact stop any of these outlets from insinuating something bad was in these emails? Nope.
And then there’s CNN actually fact-checking Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett on air, pointing out that Democrats deliberately redacted Giuffre's name to push a false narrative against Trump.
During the exchange, CNN’s Pamela Brown referenced the 2011 email, noting that “Republicans were saying that that victim is Virginia Giuffre.” Brown reminded viewers that Giuffre had been “very outspoken, a very outspoken victim of Jeffrey Epstein,” and pointed out that “she wrote a book, as you know, and she did not accuse him of any wrongdoing.” Brown then asked, “What do you make of that? And can you confirm that?”
Rep. Crockett responded, “Yes, I don’t know. Obviously, it’s redacted who the victim is, so I won’t necessarily take the Republicans’ word on who it is that’s redacted.” She added, “And I don’t know why they would necessarily redact someone’s name who is deceased at this point.”
Except that it was Democrats who had, in fact, redacted her name. The original document provided by the Oversight Committee did not redact her name.
And the amazing thing is that Brown called her out on it.
“The Democrats did that, though. The Democrats redacted it—”
BRUTAL! Jasmine Crockett gets called out live by CNN for Democrats redacting Epstein documents to try to smear President Trump with their fake narrative. 🤥
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) November 12, 2025
CNN: " She did not accuse [Trump] of any wrongdoing."
Crockett: " I don't know why they would necessarily redact… pic.twitter.com/FWPGl2ddd6
This, of course, proves exactly why they redacted Giuffre’s name in the first place. Democrats thought they were being clever by doing so, but the move only made their desperation more obvious and calls attention to the fact that Giuffre being named in the email was actually an inconvenient fact for the narrative they were trying to push. Democrats were hoping the public wouldn’t find out the victim mentioned in the email was Giuffre because she had testified under oath repeatedly and unambiguously that Trump never acted inappropriately toward her, never engaged in any sexual or flirtatious behavior, and was never present with Epstein at any Epstein property. Her memoir backs this up completely. She has stated clearly that Trump had zero involvement in Epstein's activities and that she never saw the two men together.
Democrats gambled that releasing these emails would damage Trump. Instead, they exposed their own willingness to manipulate evidence and obscure exculpatory testimony. When CNN, ABC News, and the Associated Press conclude your smoking gun is a dud, you've failed spectacularly. The emails prove what Trump supporters have known all along: Trump cut ties with Epstein when he learned about his behavior. That's the opposite of complicity. Democrats just handed Trump another vindication, and the media knows it.
