President Donald Trump swatted away a question from a reporter who pressed him on the emergence of a birthday message he allegedly sent to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump was reached for comment by NBC News on Tuesday morning after House Oversight Committee Democrats released Epstein’s 50th birthday book, compiled in 2003 by jailed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and supplied by the Epstein estate. The book includes a lewd drawing of a naked woman alongside a loving message telling the disgraced financier, “May every day be another wonderful secret,” apparently signed with the president’s distinctive, thick handwriting.
The 79-year-old, who had previously suggested the existence of the message was a “hoax,” refused to be drawn in further, telling NBC News by phone that the ongoing fallout over his ties to Epstein was a “dead issue.”
“I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue,” Trump told the network. “I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.”
Trump and the White House initially denied that the nude drawing and accompanying message even existed when The Wall Street Journal first reported on it in July.
Since its release Monday under subpoena of the Epstein estate by the House Oversight Committee, the Trump administration has shifted to a new defense, insisting the signature at the bottom of the message is not Trump’s. The claim centers on a long line at the end of the signature, which aides say is inconsistent with how Trump signs his name.
However, analysis by the Journal points to examples of Trump signatures—such as a 2006 letter to lawyer George Conway and a 2000 letter to Hillary Clinton congratulating his eventual nemesis over her election to the Senate—that also feature the same long black line at the end of Trump’s signature, thus authenticating the Epstein message.
“As I have said all along, it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X.
Deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich also shared examples of Trump’s current autograph while telling the Journal’s parent company, News Corp, to “open that checkbook.”
“It’s not his signature,” Budowich wrote. “DEFAMATION!”
Trump has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, over the paper’s original reporting of the Epstein birthday message.
The Epstein book was created to commemorate his 50th birthday in 2003, a period when he and Trump were still close friends and before Epstein’s child sex abuse was first exposed. It was originally believed that the pair fell out around 2004 over a Palm Beach real estate deal.
Trump has since claimed he cut ties with Epstein because the financier “stole” young workers from Mar-a-Lago including Virginia Giuffre, a sex trafficking victim of Epstein’s who died by suicide in April.
The White House referred back to Leavitt’s previous remarks when contacted for comment by the Daily Beast.
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