A key email from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, in combination with statements by Trump ally House Speaker Mike Johnson, shows it is highly likely that Trump was a confidential FBI informant in the first sex trafficking investigation into Epstein and his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell.

The press has totally overlooked the significance of this email.

On April 2, 2011, Epstein emailed Maxwell the following about Donald Trump:

“i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump—virginia— spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned. police chief. etc. im 75 % there”

Maxwell responded, “I have been thinking about that…”

Epstein authored this email after the conclusion of the investigations by the State of Florida and the FBI into his conduct with underage girls, and after Epstein had served his overly lenient sentence. The second federal investigation had not yet begun, but victims began filing civil lawsuits against him, and Epstein was a registered sex offender.

The phrase, “dog that hasn’t barked” comes from the Sherlock Holmes story entitled “The Adventure of Silver Blaze.” In that story, Holmes solved the identity of the murderer by concluding that the reason the watch dog at the scene of the crime had not barked was because he was familiar with the killer.

In reference to the silent watch dog, Epstein raised with Maxwell the peculiarity that Trump “has never once been mentioned” in the investigation by the “police chief. etc.” [a shorthand reference to the Palm Beach detectives who physically conducted the investigation], even though Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of the victim-witnesses, Virginia Giuffre.

Given that none of the investigators ever “mentioned” Trump, despite Trump having spent “hours” with Giuffre, Epstein concluded that just like the silence of the watch dog in the Sherlock Holmes story, Trump was the “dog that hasn’t barked,” leading him to believe that Trump must have been cooperating against him.

When Epstein wrote, “I’m 75% there,” he referred to his level of confidence in suspecting that Trump was cooperating with the authorities in the past investigations. Maxwell’s response that “I have been thinking about that…” confirmed she too suspected Trump of cooperating with the authorities.

What nails it is the September 5, 2025, statement by House Speaker Mike Johnson to reporters that what Epstein did was an “unspeakable evil” and that Donald Trump “was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down,” referring to Epstein’s criminal activities. Johnson said that he and Trump had “spoken about this many times” “as recently as twenty-four hours ago.”

Within days, Johnson, who is in regular contact with Trump, backtracked from his statement without a coherent or valid explanation. His excuse was that he might not have used the “right word.” Really!! Unsurprisingly, the White House denied that Trump was an FBI informant in the Epstein case, saying Johnson’s original description was not correct.

Clearly, Trump does not want it publicly known that he was an FBI informant. From my experience as a prosecutor, the principal way a person becomes a confidential informant is when the FBI uses a person’s involvement in criminal activity to turn the individual into an informant to avoid prosecution.

In the case of Trump, that does not necessarily mean the criminal leverage was Trump’s involvement with Epstein’s sex trafficking. It could have been something else. If so, what did the FBI have on Trump?

The big question — will future productions of DOJ’s Epstein files reveal Trump’s involvement as an FBI informant against Epstein? It certainly should.