A key congressional committee on Monday released a note and sexually suggestive drawing apparently signed by Donald J. Trump and included in a book for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 — a drawing that Mr. Trump has insisted is fake.
The drawing — a figure of a naked woman with “Donald” written below her waist — was part of a batch of documents turned over by Mr. Epstein’s estate to the House Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed them, and released by the panel on Monday evening.
The sketch, in thick black ink, outlines text that quotes an imagined conversation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein, with what appears to be Mr. Trump’s first name scrawled in his distinctive handwriting.
Democrats quickly seized on it to call on the Trump administration to divulge all of its files related to its investigation of Mr. Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges, in what was later ruled a suicide.
“The Oversight Committee has secured the infamous ‘Birthday Book’ that contains a note from President Trump that he has said does not exist,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement. “It’s time for the president to tell us the truth about what he knew and release all the Epstein files.”
White House officials denied that the image was created by the president.
“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, wrote on social media.
Taylor Budowich, the deputy chief of staff for communications, said in his own post that the signature was not Mr. Trump’s, sharing recent photos of autographed items on which the president’s signature looks more angular.
But several pieces of personal correspondence reviewed by The New York Times that Mr. Trump signed with just his first name decades ago, closer to the time period of the birthday book, look remarkably similar to the signature on the drawing. Like the sketch, they have more distinct individual letters and a long tail of ink at the end of the final “d” in “Donald.” The Times obtained copies of the documents several years ago from the official New York City archives of former Mayors Rudolph W. Giuliani and Edward I. Koch.
The Trump administration has been grappling for months with an escalating backlash over its handling of the Epstein files, after top Justice Department officials backtracked on a promise to release revealing material about his case.
Many of Mr. Trump’s right-wing supporters were angered by the apparent reversal, opening a rift within the Republican Party that briefly stalled its legislative agenda in July. Facing discontent in their ranks, Republican leaders are trying to suppress a bipartisan effort to force the House to vote on a bill that would require the Justice Department to quickly and fully release its material on Mr. Epstein.
Democrats teamed with Republicans on the oversight panel in July to force its Republican chairman, Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, to issue a subpoena for the Justice Department’s files. Mr. Comer issued another subpoena in August to Mr. Epstein’s estate, which provided a copy of the birthday book, among other materials, in response, according to a committee aide.
Details of the drawing and note were reported by The Wall Street Journal in July. The president has vehemently denied writing the letter or drawing the figure, and has sued the Journal for defamation. At the time, Mr. Trump wrote on social media, “The supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE.”
Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were friendly in the 1990s and 2000s, with their relationship appearing to fizzle out around 2004. The letter in the birthday book appears to be an imagined script of a conversation in which they discuss life having value beyond material possessions.
“We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” one line from the note attributed to Mr. Trump says. It closes with a reference to a “wonderful secret” the two men share.
In addition to a copy of the birthday book, Mr. Epstein’s estate gave the Oversight Committee a copy of his will from shortly before his death; entries from his address books and contacts list; information about his bank accounts; and a copy of a 2007 agreement in which prosecutors agreed not to prosecute him on federal charges in connection with a sex trafficking investigation.
The committee made most of those materials public on Monday night, including a redacted copy of the birthday book. Lawyers for Mr. Epstein’s estate told the committee that they removed the names and photos of women and minors who appeared in the book in order to ensure that any potential victims of Mr. Epstein could not be identified, according to a copy of a letter to the committee that was viewed by The Times.
Mr. Comer, the committee chairman, accused Democrats of politicizing the Epstein files, saying in a statement that they were “cherry-picking documents and politicizing information.” His statement did not mention the sexually suggestive drawing and note, saying only that “President Trump is not accused of any wrongdoing.”
Mr. Comer’s subpoena to the estate also requested a so-called client list of prominent figures to whom Mr. Epstein had supplied young women. Such a list has been at the center of conspiratorial theories about Mr. Epstein’s death and the investigation into him.
But the estate’s lawyers said they were not aware of the existence of any such document, echoing the Justice Department’s conclusion that it did not exist.
Russ Buettner contributed reporting.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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