German (DE) 
English (US) 
Spanish (ES) 
French (FR) 
Hindi (IN) 
Italian (IT) 
Russian (RU) 
8 hours ago
House Democrats needled Donald Trump and Republicans on Monday after they obtained and released a copy of a birthday scrapbook for Jeffrey Epstein, which included a vulgar and sexual letter Trump has denied sending the convicted sex offender.
Trump vigorously denied the letter existed when the Wall Street Journal first revealed its existence in July, and sued the outlet for defamation. After subpoenaing Epstein’s estate, the US House oversight committee obtained the letter, which was among a book of letters sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday.
“The Oversight Committee has secured the infamous ‘Birthday Book’ that contains a note from President Trump that he has said does not exist. It’s time for the President to tell us the truth about what he knew and release all the Epstein files. The American people are demanding answers,” Robert Garcia, a California Democrat on the House oversight committee, said in a statement on Monday.
Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat who also sits on the oversight committee, said the letter’s existence raised more questions about what Trump was being dishonest about.
“The biggest issue is that he cannot be honest about it,” she said in an interview on CNN on Monday. “ If you will lie about something this simple, then when you’re trying to tell us that you had nothing to do with these women or these girls, why should we believe you?”
The California governor, Gavin Newsom, a Democrat widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2028, posted a video on X that spliced together a clip of Trump saying “I don’t do drawings” and the letter.
He also taunted Vice-President JD Vance, who called the Journal’s story “utter bullshit” in July and denied the letter existed. Newsom reposted Vance’s comments from July on Monday and said “this aged nicely”.
Epstein and Trump were longtime friends who fell out around 2004. Trump has said the rupture in the friendship came after Epstein “stole” young women from the spa at Mar-a-Lago, including Virginia Giuffre, who was one of Epstein’s most high-profile accusers.
There has been mounting pressure on the Trump administration to release information related to Epstein ever since the justice department announced earlier this summer there was no client list of Epstein that could be released. As candidates, Trump and Vance had said they would investigate Epstein.
The White House and Republican allies have continued to deny that the letter is genuine, but several news organizations compared Trump’s signature on the Epstein letter with other Trump signatures and found it to be similar to known Trump signatures.
“The Democrats don’t care about Epstein. They don’t even care about his victims. That’s why they were silent about it for years. The only thing they care about is concocting another fake scandal like Russiagate to smear President Trump with lies. No one is falling for this BS,” Vance said in a post 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,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a post on X. “This is FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!”
“What I see is not his signature,” the Republican representative Byron Donalds of Florida told reporters on Monday. “I’ve seen Donald Trump sign a million things.”
Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee proposed another outlandish theory – telling reporters on Capitol Hill the signature could have been forged or done with an autopen. “It’s so easy to do,” he said.
Comments