Recently published emails from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein are putting the US President in distress. Did Trump have an affair with his assistant?
November 16, 2025, 06:13November 16, 2025, 6:16 p.m
Martin Küper / t-online
The recently published emails from the estate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein contain a piquant claim from star US journalist Michael Wolff, who has written several bestsellers about President Donald Trump. In a March 2019 message to Epstein, Wolff wrote that Trump had bragged to friends about having an affair with his then 28-year-old assistant Madeleine Westerhout.
US President Donald Trump: His former assistant rejected rumors of an affair.Image: keystone
In the email to Epstein, Wolff reports that Westerhout told friends how she found Trump in his underwear in his private rooms in the White House when she went to bring him papers to review. When it came to the question of why Trump wanted to spend a weekend in the White House in January 2019 instead of, as usual, at his property in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, he explained to friends: Because he was “banging” Madeleine, Wolff quoted the then president.
Affair with Donald Trump: “Absurd”
Wolff himself was apparently unable to adequately substantiate Trump’s alleged statement. In the email he asks Epstein to assess whether the information is credible. However, there is no answer from Epstein in the collection of more than 20,000 emails. Westerhout himself dismissed the claims in the British Mirror as “absurd and detached from reality”. But the possibility of an affair is probably not entirely unreasonable – at least not from Trump’s point of view.
Before working as an assistant in the White House, Westerhout served Trump as a receptionist and elevator operator at Trump Tower in New York. After his election victory in 2015, she publicly led candidates for Trump’s cabinet to his office – and thus achieved a certain level of notoriety herself. At the end of 2016, Westerhout also assisted Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Even at this time, Trump is said to have looked at Westerhout, who was born in 1990, several times and said: “She has a way about her,” wrote Michael Wolff to Jeffrey Epstein. Wolff himself never published the episode.
Madeleine Westerhout worked as Trump’s personal assistant.Image: AP/AP
Epstein affair puts Trump in trouble
Wolff is considered an intimate expert on the powerful in Washington. In 2018, his book “Fire and Fury: Inside Donald Trump’s White House” highlighted the chaotic conditions in the US government during Trump’s first term in office. At the beginning of this year, Wolff spoke in an interview with t-online about his latest work “All or Nothing: Donald Trump’s Return to Power”. In it, Wolff also commented on Trump’s marriage to Melania, which was a “useful arrangement” for both partners. “And in Trump’s environment, everyone knows,” said Wolff.
Michael Wolff maintains excellent contacts in the US capital.Image: keystone
But even if the rumors about an affair with Madeleine Westerhout turn out to be true, that would hardly be Trump’s biggest concern. The Epstein emails released by Congress last week increase pressure on the government to release all documents about Trump’s long-time friend. Trump has so far rejected this. Epstein was accused of having abused a number of girls and young women over the years and of having trafficked them to celebrities. In 2008, Epstein was convicted in Florida of soliciting minors for prostitution, but only went to prison for a few months.
In July 2019, Epstein was arrested again in connection with child sexual abuse. But in August 2019, Epstein was found hanging in his New York prison cell before a new trial against him could begin. Officially, Epstein died by suicide, and his death sparked many conspiracy theories. During the election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to disclose all files in the case. His refusal to keep this promise so far is fueling conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein – including among Trump’s supporters. So far, only Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice, has been held accountable for her crimes.
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