Donald Trump, former President of the United States, is denying claims that he penned a birthday missive to supposed child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, of course, is now a dead, convicted sex offender. A leather-bound concert album of TS’s has caused quite a hubbub. A birthday message to Epstein is currently drawing lots of negative attention. That’s why the Wall Street Journal reported skepticism on the process by which the letter bearing Trump’s name was generated. Here’s why we’d question its authenticity.
In the letter Trump wrote for Epstein’s 50th birthday, Trump allegedly congratulated him on finding himself at such a young age. He simply wrote, “Happy 50th! Have a wonderful day.” Though the letter had his signature, despite that fact Trump went out of his way to deny its authorship during a CNBC interview last week. He asserted, “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” and further stated, “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”
This furor grew worse as Trump was being criticized for his longstanding relationship with Epstein. Epstein received a sentence of 20 years in prison in 2022 for his role in conspiring to sexually abuse minors. Epstein became a controversial figure following his arrest on child sex trafficking charges in July 2019, a month before he died in a Manhattan federal jail. Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, was found guilty of sex trafficking and other charges for her role in procuring underage girls for Epstein.
Trump alleged that he cut off his friendship with Epstein back in 2008. This was even before Epstein pleaded guilty to a sex crime with a minor in Florida state court. The resurfacing of the birthday letter complicates this narrative once again, providing new context to Trump’s connections to Epstein.
Years earlier, the Justice Department had also investigated Epstein and Maxwell. They analyzed a scrapbook that included Trump’s birthday letter, as well as letters from famous friends such as Alan Dershowitz and Les Wexner. Whether this album was included in the trove of recent documents that the Justice Department is currently reviewing still seems unclear.
In the face of growing outrage over this unfolding crisis, Trump attempted to bury or deflect blame. At the same time, he called for suing The Wall Street Journal. “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he stated.
As the blistering criticism of Trump has continued, some have begun to accuse the President and raise the very real question of what his past associations with Epstein could mean. JD Vance, the newly-elected Republican senator from Ohio, rushed to defend Trump, calling the WSJ report “total and complete cowshit.”