Lesley Groff, a former executive secretary to Jeffrey Epstein, told the House Oversight Committee she arranged phone calls between Epstein and President Donald Trump several times a year for at least a decade, while also saying she couldn’t recall setting up i
For years, Lesley Groff worked in the tight rhythm of Jeffrey Epstein’s schedule—down to daily massages—and she says she was also making phone connections at the center of one of the most politically explosive relationships in U.S. public life.
Groff, the former executive secretary for Epstein, told the House Oversight Committee that she arranged phone calls between Epstein and President Donald Trump several times a year for at least a decade. The statement came through a transcript released Tuesday by the committee.
Groff testified that she was hired by Epstein in 2001. In her account to lawmakers, she said she didn’t remember setting up any in-person meetings between the two men. When pressed on the nature of their relationship, she later described it as “friendly.”
“I suppose they were friendly,” Groff said. “I don’t know if they had any business going on. That wasn’t something that I asked. That’s not something I discussed with Mr. Epstein or Mr. Trump, so I don’t really know. It’s possible that they were friendly.”
Asked by lawmakers about claims that Epstein kept a photo of himself with Trump on his desk, Groff said she didn’t recall seeing one.
In her opening statement, Groff focused on her day-to-day work. She testified that she handled scheduling Epstein’s daily massages with dozens of various women. including in New York and the United Kingdom. Her testimony landed in a broader body of testimony from survivors who have said they were forced to perform massages on Epstein as a pretext for sexual abuse. Many of those survivors have said they were minors.
Groff’s account arrived at a moment when Vice President JD Vance has been publicly defending the idea that Epstein and Trump had only a brief connection—if any at all.
Last week, Vance pushed back repeatedly when hosts pointed to Trump’s long friendship with Epstein on The View. Vance asserted that he and Trump had known each other in the 1980s and that their friendship ended after Trump threw Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club and reported him to the police.
But the transcript and discussion around their exchange pointed to evidence showing their relationship lasted into the early 2000s. Vance said, “Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald Trump,” and added, “Donald Trump literally reported Jeffrey Epstein to the police.”
On Capitol Hill, many Democrats on the House Oversight Committee were not persuaded by Groff’s explanations. They said her testimony conflicted with what they believed she would have known, given the length of her employment and the nature of her role.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) told reporters that he didn’t believe Groff’s claims that she never saw Epstein do anything inappropriate with a minor and never scheduled him for massages with underage girls.
“It is highly inconsistent what she is maintaining, that she really didn’t know Jeffrey Epstein even though she worked for him for 18 years,” Lynch said. “I just question whether she can rightfully and truthfully maintain that she saw nothing improper.”
The congressional testimony leaves a sharp line of tension hanging in the air: Groff described her work as meticulous and long-running—phone calls between Epstein and Trump several times a year for at least a decade—while also drawing boundaries around what she remembered. what she saw. and what she said she never discussed. And for Democrats skeptical of her credibility, those boundaries are exactly where the story feels most difficult to accept.
Epstein Lesley Groff House Oversight Committee Donald Trump JD Vance phone calls Mar-a-Lago massages Stephen Lynch survivors