'Most significant development in years': Epstein author gobsmacked by new revelations

An author who wrote a book about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's crimes was visibly gobsmacked on Wednesday when asked to react to a new tranche of documents released by Congressional lawmakers about the case.

On Wednesday, lawmakers released a series of documents that blew holes in President Donald Trump's claims about his relationship with Epstein. Trump has claimed not to know Epstein well, even though the documents describe a time Trump was in Epstein's home with one of his victims for several hours. The documents do not allege that Trump committed any crimes.

Barry Levine, who authored "The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell," discussed the documents on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront."

"To me, this is maybe the most significant development in this story that we have actually seen in many years," he said. "Now, of course, this email was in 2011. The context for this, of course, was a few weeks after Virginia Giuffre gave an interview to the reporter from The Sunday Mail, in which she never made any accusations against Donald Trump."

"I, in fact, looked over the notes of that reporter," he continued. "She graciously provided them to me when I was working on my book. There were no references to any wrongdoing by Donald Trump. However, a few weeks after that story broke where she made the allegations against Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein was emailing, Ghislaine Maxwell, and specifically references 'spent hours with' and to me, that's extremely troubling."