Trump’s Epstein letter denial just suffered another huge blow.
Trump’s Epstein letter denial just suffered another huge blow.
Analysis by Aaron Blake/CNN
Among the many weird things Donald Trump and his administration have said and done vis-à-vis Jeffrey Epstein in recent weeks is the president’s curious denial of writing the disgraced financier a lewd birthday letter two decades ago.
We knew Trump and Epstein were friends around this time. We also know Trump has said plenty of lewd things.
But Trump not only denied writing the letter, he also sued the Wall Street Journal over its initial report about it. He suggested someone else could’ve written it and signed his name.
That denial suffered another significant blow on Monday.
The House Oversight Committee received a copy of the “birthday book” containing the letter in question, and it matches the Journal’s description of the letter. It’s a page long and features a silhouette of a woman’s body with an apparently imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein inside the drawing. Below it is a signature line that feature’s Trump’s name and a cursive “Donald” in an area made to look like a woman’s pubic area.
The key fact here is that this comes from Epstein’s estate. In other words, for this letter to have been fake, someone would have had to plant it in Epstein’s possessions a long time ago, somehow.
The key fact here is that this comes from Epstein’s estate. In other words, for this letter to have been fake, someone would have had to plant it in Epstein’s possessions a long time ago, somehow.
Trump has called the letter a “FAKE” and flatly denied authoring it. And plenty of allies lined up behind that denial. Vice President JD Vance called the Journal’s report “complete and utter bullshit.”
But even at the time, Trump’s denials were quickly called into question.
Part of Trump’s denial rested on the idea that it wasn’t in his character to draw a picture like the one in the letter.
“I never wrote a picture in my life,” Trump said at one point. “I don’t draw pictures,” he added at another.
But it wasn’t hard to find doodles Trump had drawn around the same time. In fact, Trump donated an autographed doodle every year to a charity. A charity director also told CNN that Trump provided two signed drawings in 2004. That would have been the year after the 2003 birthday letter.
Further complicating Trump’s denials now is the signature that’s appended to the letter.
After the letter was made publicly available on Monday, the White House and prominent Trump allies quickly claimed the signature didn’t look like his. Some compared it with official signatures.
“Time for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said on X, referring to the Journal’s parent company.
“Is this really the best they could do? Trump has the most famous signature in the world,” pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson said.
“Does the below from the WSJ look like this actual signature from the President? I don’t think so at all. Fake,” fellow pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to allude to the same claim, saying the image of the letter somehow proves the Journal’s story wrong.
“As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” Leavitt said.
But while Trump’s official signature often looks more jagged than the loopier “Donald” on the Epstein birthday letter, there are many examples of him signing his name in a similar way around the period in question.
There’s a 1996 letter to then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. There’s a 1995 letter to a member of a local Palm Beach commission. There’s a 1999 letter to former CNN host Larry King. There’s a 1984 letter to the executive editor of the New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Monday produced a 2014 letter he received. There’s even an inscription from 1997 in a Trump book that Epstein owned.
All feature that loopier style, followed by a long tail coming off the final “d” in Trump’s first name.
It looks like Trump often signed his name in this manner when the subject matter was more personal — situations in which signing with his first name only would be appropriate.
If anything, the signature appears to affirm the legitimacy of the letter. But Trump allies are apparently sticking to the claim, even after their assertions about Trump drawings already blew up in their faces.
In the grand scheme of things, whether this letter was actually from Trump wouldn’t seem to matter. What does it really add to the record or tell us about him or his ties to Epstein?
But, for some reason, this was a battle that Trump chose. It could be another item in a long list of poor decisions by his administration on Epstein.
Analysis by Aaron Blake/CNN
Among the many weird things Donald Trump and his administration have said and done vis-à-vis Jeffrey Epstein in recent weeks is the president’s curious denial of writing the disgraced financier a lewd birthday letter two decades ago.
We knew Trump and Epstein were friends around this time. We also know Trump has said plenty of lewd things.
But Trump not only denied writing the letter, he also sued the Wall Street Journal over its initial report about it. He suggested someone else could’ve written it and signed his name.
That denial suffered another significant blow on Monday.
The House Oversight Committee received a copy of the “birthday book” containing the letter in question, and it matches the Journal’s description of the letter. It’s a page long and features a silhouette of a woman’s body with an apparently imagined conversation between Trump and Epstein inside the drawing. Below it is a signature line that feature’s Trump’s name and a cursive “Donald” in an area made to look like a woman’s pubic area.
The key fact here is that this comes from Epstein’s estate. In other words, for this letter to have been fake, someone would have had to plant it in Epstein’s possessions a long time ago, somehow.
The key fact here is that this comes from Epstein’s estate. In other words, for this letter to have been fake, someone would have had to plant it in Epstein’s possessions a long time ago, somehow.
Trump has called the letter a “FAKE” and flatly denied authoring it. And plenty of allies lined up behind that denial. Vice President JD Vance called the Journal’s report “complete and utter bullshit.”
But even at the time, Trump’s denials were quickly called into question.
Part of Trump’s denial rested on the idea that it wasn’t in his character to draw a picture like the one in the letter.
“I never wrote a picture in my life,” Trump said at one point. “I don’t draw pictures,” he added at another.
But it wasn’t hard to find doodles Trump had drawn around the same time. In fact, Trump donated an autographed doodle every year to a charity. A charity director also told CNN that Trump provided two signed drawings in 2004. That would have been the year after the 2003 birthday letter.
Further complicating Trump’s denials now is the signature that’s appended to the letter.
After the letter was made publicly available on Monday, the White House and prominent Trump allies quickly claimed the signature didn’t look like his. Some compared it with official signatures.
“Time for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said on X, referring to the Journal’s parent company.
“Is this really the best they could do? Trump has the most famous signature in the world,” pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson said.
“Does the below from the WSJ look like this actual signature from the President? I don’t think so at all. Fake,” fellow pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to allude to the same claim, saying the image of the letter somehow proves the Journal’s story wrong.
“As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” Leavitt said.
But while Trump’s official signature often looks more jagged than the loopier “Donald” on the Epstein birthday letter, there are many examples of him signing his name in a similar way around the period in question.
There’s a 1996 letter to then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. There’s a 1995 letter to a member of a local Palm Beach commission. There’s a 1999 letter to former CNN host Larry King. There’s a 1984 letter to the executive editor of the New York Times, A.M. Rosenthal. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on Monday produced a 2014 letter he received. There’s even an inscription from 1997 in a Trump book that Epstein owned.
All feature that loopier style, followed by a long tail coming off the final “d” in Trump’s first name.
It looks like Trump often signed his name in this manner when the subject matter was more personal — situations in which signing with his first name only would be appropriate.
If anything, the signature appears to affirm the legitimacy of the letter. But Trump allies are apparently sticking to the claim, even after their assertions about Trump drawings already blew up in their faces.
In the grand scheme of things, whether this letter was actually from Trump wouldn’t seem to matter. What does it really add to the record or tell us about him or his ties to Epstein?
But, for some reason, this was a battle that Trump chose. It could be another item in a long list of poor decisions by his administration on Epstein.
