Congressman Says Redacted Part of Epstein File Suggests Trump Never Banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago

Congressman Says Redacted Part of Epstein File Suggests Trump Never Banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago https://ift.tt/pFDzZnv

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin spoke with reporters after viewing a handful of unredacted Epstein files on Monday, Feb. 9, sharing one detail that stood out to him

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 1997

Davidoff Studios/Getty 

NEED TO KNOW

• A previously unseen section of the Epstein files may refute one of President Donald Trump's defenses about his friendship with the convicted sex offender
• Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin spoke with reporters on Monday after viewing unredacted versions of the Epstein files, relaying that one document he saw appeared to suggest that Trump never asked Epstein to leave his Mar-a-Lago club like the president has claimed
• Raskin also said that the Justice Department has only released about half of the files in the Epstein evidence, claiming they've withheld around three million documents

A previously unseen part of the Epstein files may refute one of President Donald Trump's most common claims about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Democratic congressman.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin spoke with reporters on Monday, Feb. 9, after reviewing unredacted versions of some documents in the Epstein files.

The Department of Justice has released countless documents to the public in large batches, though many of the documents were shared with heavy redactions that omitted significant context. Raskin was among a select group of House members who were granted permission to view some original documents in person.

Raskin, 63, said he has only had the opportunity to review about "30 or 40" of the documents so far, in preparation for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Feb. 11. However, one of the documents he did see had an interesting exchange that could call some of the president's previous statements into question.

The document in question was an email forward from Epstein to his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, from 2009, which was just after the late billionaire's 2008 conviction on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute. The email exchange apparently recounted a conversation between lawyers for Epstein and Trump.

"Epstein's lawyers synopsized and quoted Trump as saying that Jeffrey Epstein was not a member of his club at Mar-a-Lago, but he was a guest at Mar-a-Lago, and he had never been asked to leave," Raskin said. "That was redacted for some indeterminate, inscrutable reason."

"I know it seems to be at odds with some things that President Trump has been saying recently about how he had kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club or asked him to leave, and this was at least one report that appears to contradict it," Raskin continued.

PEOPLE reached out to Raskin for more context on the document he referenced, and sought comment from the White House and DOJ about Raskin's claims.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) watches testimony at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 10, 2024

Kent Nishimura/Getty

One of Trump's fallback replies to questions about his relationship with Epstein, who died in prison while facing federal sex trafficking charges, is that he had Epstein kicked out of his Mar-a-Lago club for behaving inappropriately with members of the staff.

In December 2025, following new reporting fromThe Wall Street Journal that claimed teenage Mar-a-Lago workers were sent to Epstein's Florida home to give him massages, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, "No matter how many times this story is told and retold, the truth remains: President Trump did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep."

Months earlier, Trump, 79, spoke with reporters about Air Force One, where he seemed to imply that Epstein was banned for poaching Mar-a-Lago employees.

"People were taken out of the spa — hired by him — in other words, gone. And other people would come and complain, 'This guy is taking people from the spa,'" Trump said. "I didn't know that. And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa, I don't want them taking people.' And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again. And I said, 'Out of here.' "

Raskin said there may be other damning evidence in the unredacted files; however, the sheer amount of documents is daunting.

"The Department of Justice is under orders from Congress to release the entire Epstein file. They've released 3.5 million documents and they've withheld 3 million documents," he said. "These materials could have been released long ago, but they're just being released now... There is no way, before Attorney General Bondi arrives on Wednesday, that we're going to have the opportunity to go through every redaction in order to ask thorough questions."

The congressman said he believes the DOJ has held up the release in part to protect some of the powerful public figures whose names appear in the files.

"I think that the Department of Justice has been in a cover-up mode for many months and has been trying to sweep the entire thing under the rug," he said.

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One way to sort through the mire of information and allegations, Raskin believes, is to have hearings with the Epstein survivors who have come forward publicly.

"The more that I've gotten into it, the more I believe that the survivors here, the victims who are now active citizens for justice, really are leading the way," he said. "We need to be having hearings with the survivors to hear from them about their experiences, so they can explain what happened. And so they can begin to set forth a theory of what took place."

"We need to be investigating the money. We need to be investigating the organizational hierarchy. There's no way you run a billion-dollar international child sex trafficking ring with just two people committing crimes, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. No way. It doesn't work like that," Raskin continued.

"So, we need to figure out what other conspiracies were involved, what other co-conspirators were involved, and I really do believe that listening to the survivors is going to be our pathway through this nightmare."