NEED TO KNOW
After an email in the Jeffrey Epstein files went viral for its reference to President Donald Trump “blowing Bubba,” Jeffrey’s brother is offering clarification about the message.
The House Oversight Committee recently released a large amount of documents from Jeffrey’s estate, and Trump — who was mentioned multiple times in the files — is once again being scrutinized over his relationship with the convicted sexual offender. The documents include an email from Mark Epstein that references photos of Trump, 79, “blowing Bubba.”
“Bubba” is a nickname of Bill Clinton; however, Mark told The Advocate in a story published on Sunday, Nov. 16, that the individual isn’t the former president.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the reference to ‘Bubba’ in this correspondence is not, in any way, a reference to former President Bill Clinton,” Mark said in a statement to the outlet.
Ali Clark, a spokesperson for Mark, told The Advocate that “Bubba” is “a private individual who is not a public figure.”
Mark also explained that the email exchange was being misread. “They were simply part of a humorous private exchange between two brothers and were never meant for public release or to be interpreted as serious remarks,” he told The Advocate.
When asked for additional context about the message, Mark declined to provide more details.
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Mark’s March 2018 email included an exchange in which he asked Jeffrey to ask Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, if Russian President Vladimir Putin has “the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”
“You and your boy Donnie can make a remake of the movie Get Hard,” Mark wrote in the exchange.
PEOPLE reached out Clinton’s office for comment on Sunday, Nov. 16, but did not receive an immediate response.
In a statement to PEOPLE, White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said: “Those emails prove literally nothing. Democrats and the mainstream media are desperately trying to use this hoax as a distraction to talk about anything other than the President’s many wins, including the Democrats getting utterly defeated by President Trump in the shutdown fight. We won’t be distracted, and the entire Administration will continue fulfilling the promises the President was elected on, including cutting the Biden-era price hikes.”
In a lengthy statement shared on Truth Social on Friday, Nov. 14, Trump, 79, called the files a “hoax” and seemingly attempted to remove himself from the narrative entirely. He later told press on Air Force One that he “doesn’t care” that additional documents may soon see the light of day.
“Now that the Democrats are using the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans, to try and deflect from their disastrous SHUTDOWN, and all of their other failures,” he wrote on Truth Social, “I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.”
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Trump also accused Democrats of using the emails that mention him to distract from the federal government’s reopening following a historic shutdown, and said he was ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to have the Justice Department investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s relationships with multiple other high-profile individuals and institutions, including Hoffman and Clinton.
Bondi, 59, later confirmed that an investigation is underway, PEOPLE previously reported.
During Clinton’s presidency, Jeffrey — then a well-connected wealth manager — visited the White House many times, while Clinton traveled on his private jet on multiple occasions. The former president has not been linked to any crimes committed by Jeffrey.
In one email sent by Jeffrey on March 6, 2011, he claimed “Clinton was never on the island,” seemingly referring to Little Saint James, the island where he was accused of sex trafficking underage girls.
Clinton’s spokesperson said in a statement shared with PEOPLE in 2024, “It’s been nearly 20 years since President Clinton last had contact with Epstein,” and referred PEOPLE to a 2019 statement that reads, in part, “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes” committed by Jeffrey.
Among the collection of documents released earlier this week was an alleged February 2017 exchange in which Jeffrey called Trump “dangerous.”
In another email, Jeffrey allegedly told his personal confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, “I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Redacted victim’s name] spent hours at my house with him, he has never once been mentioned.”
Jeffrey also allegedly wrote to Trump biographer Michael Wolff that “of course” Trump “knew about the girls.”
In a statement shared with PEOPLE on Wednesday, Feb. 13, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, “The ‘unnamed victim’ referenced in these emails is the late Virginia Giuffre,” referring to the former Mar-a-Lago employee and Jeffrey Epstein victim who died by suicide in April.
Leavitt said Giuffre “repeatedly said President Trump was not involved in any wrongdoing whatsoever and ‘couldn’t have been friendlier’ to her in their limited interactions.”
“The fact remains that President Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club decades ago for being a creep to his female employees, including Giuffre,” she continued. “These stories are nothing more than bad-faith efforts to distract from President Trump’s historic accomplishments, and any American with common sense sees right through this hoax and clear distraction from the government opening back up again.”
