Unredacted documents from the Jeffrey Epstein case have raised new questions about President Donald Trump's long-standing claim that he barred Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club, according to a senior House Democrat who reviewed the materials. The disclosure adds to mounting congressional pressure on the Department of Justice to release millions of pages that remain under seal.
Representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said Monday that an email contained in the unredacted Epstein files suggests the late financier was never formally banned from Mar-a-Lago, even after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor. Raskin said the message, dated 2009, appears to contradict public statements from Trump and the White House.
"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," Raskin told reporters. "At least one report appears to contradict it."
The email, which Raskin said was sent by Epstein to his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell, references communications involving Epstein's lawyers and Trump. Raskin said the exchange indicates Epstein was neither barred nor instructed to leave the Palm Beach resort, despite not being a formal club member.
Trump and his aides have repeatedly said otherwise. In December 2025, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump "did nothing wrong and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep." Trump has also claimed he confronted Epstein over alleged efforts to recruit Mar-a-Lago staff for massages and ordered him to depart.
Raskin said the newly surfaced email is only a small portion of a vast documentary record. About 3.5 million Epstein-related documents have been made public so far, while roughly three million more remain sealed, according to figures he cited. The lawmaker said the pace of disclosure has frustrated congressional oversight efforts.
"The Department of Justice is under orders from Congress to release the entire Epstein file," Raskin said. "These materials could have been released long ago, but they're only now trickling out. There is no way, before Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies on Wednesday, that we can fully interrogate every redaction to ask thorough questions."
The scale of the unreleased records has fueled speculation among lawmakers that additional facilitators or enablers could be identified once the full archive is unsealed. Raskin said incomplete disclosure makes it difficult to understand how Epstein's trafficking operation functioned and who may have supported it.
Raskin also emphasized that survivor testimony remains central to any accounting of Epstein's crimes. "The more I've gotten into it, the more I believe that the survivors, now active citizens for justice, are really leading the way," he said, adding that congressional hearings could provide a forum for victims to explain how the abuse was sustained over time.
