House Democrats released an image of a birthday message that President Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 on Monday afternoon, fueling the calls for Congress to release the Epstein files.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the existence of the card. Trump has denied writing the letter, filing a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.
In the letter, Trump tells Epstein “we have certain things in common, Jeffrey” and in another image, a book autographed by Trump for Epstein around 1997, where he wrote: “To Jeff, you are the greatest!”
The White House and Trump have denied Trump wrote the letter. White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted on X that the note should help Trump’s legal case because “it’s not his signature.”
“Time for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION,” he wrote.
However, there are other examples of Trump signing just his first name, including one from 1984 that was published in The New York Times in 2016 and another from 1999 on an auction house’s website, appeared similar to the one posted by House Democrats. George Conway, a lawyer and former Trump supporter turned critic, posted on social media a thank you note dated April 2006 with a signature that also was the same as the one in the 2003 Epstein note.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said slammed the story, calling it a Democrat hoax on X.
“As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” she said in a post on X. “This is FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!”
Vice President JD Vance posted a response to Leavitt’s statement, saying the release of the documents was “another fake scandal” and calling it a “smear.”
“No one is falling for this BS,” he added.
The new release calls into question how close Trump, the first convicted felon to be President, and Epstein, a high profile a pedophile and child sex trafficker, were.
