Jeffrey Epstein appeared to allege that Donald Trump spent hours in a house with one of the late sex trafficker’s victims and suggested the president was aware of his activities in emails released Wednesday by congressional Democrats.

“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a 2011 email, without specifying if he was referring to the future president. He went on to say that a victim had “spent hours at my house with him” and that “he has never once been mentioned,” again without directly identifying whom he was referring to.

Trump, 79, has repeatedly said he cut ties with Epstein nearly two decades ago and that he was not aware of the late financier’s activities. The Republican has faced pressure from his hard-right base to provide more transparency over the sex-trafficking investigation into Epstein, a case that has long drawn interest from many Trump allies and spurred conspiracy theories about the late convicted sex offender’s associates and death.

“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement. “The Department of Justice must fully release the Epstein files to the public immediately.” —David E. Rovella

What You Need to Know Today

The hedge funds are coming for private credit. High profile veterans including Millennium Management’s Izzy Englander, Jain Global’s Bobby Jain and Point72 Asset Management’s Steve Cohen are moving into this famously opaque realm of finance, one of many dark Wall Street corners traditionally frequented by asset management industry giants like Blackstone, Ares Management and Apollo Global Management.

The hedgies, however, believe their ability to price risk and recruit top talent could give them an edge. “Their model of dynamic capital allocation and performance-driven culture has delivered outstanding results in liquid markets, and some of that edge—particularly around disciplined risk-taking and talent management—is transferable,” said Bruno Schneller, managing partner at Erlen Capital Management. “That said, private credit is a fundamentally different business.”

The canary in the used car lot is tweeting furiously as more Americans than ever fall behind on their payments. The share of subprime borrowers at least 60 days past due on their auto loans rose to 6.65% in October, the highest in data going back 31 years.

With both inflation and unemployment rising and the return of student loan bills that had been frozen during the Biden administration, millions of car owners are struggling to afford their monthly payments. It’s the latest sign of weakness in the American economy, building on the collapse of Tricolor Holdings, the subprime auto loan lender whose implosion has forced a reckoning among major financial institutions.

For a brief moment this year, Jacinda Ardern was everywhere again. The former New Zealand prime minister brought her star power to Stephen Colbert’s show and  The Oprah Podcast; she was honored at  Sundance; celebrities posted selfies with her on Instagram.

Two years after suddenly stepping down, Andreea Papuc writes in Bloomberg Opinion, Ardern has been promoting a memoir, A Different Kind of Power, and a documentary, Prime Minister, charting her tenure from when she became head of the Labour Party in 2017. Her return reminded us that empathy in leadership can be a strength and a burden, Papuc writes, and that women in power are often subjected to a special kind of nastiness.

Jacinda Ardern in 2023 Photographer: Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images AsiaPac

Could this be Wall Street’s first glimmer of hope that artificial intelligence will actually pay off? Cisco Systems, the largest maker of machines that run computer networks and the internet, gave an upbeat sales forecast, topping average estimates. Like its tech peers, Cisco is working to benefit from booming AI spending.

The San Jose, California-based company is updating chips and networking gear to better connect server racks and data centers in order to handle complicated AI tasks. It’s vying with companies like Broadcom and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which acquired Juniper Networks, in that market.

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

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