Donald Trump’s longstanding denial of authoring a lewd birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein has come under renewed scrutiny after fresh evidence emerged this week.
For years, questions have lingered over Trump’s ties to Epstein, the disgraced financier with whom he was known to socialize in the early 2000s. One of the stranger controversies involves a 2003 “birthday letter” that surfaced in recent reports. The Wall Street Journal first described the document, noting that it featured a risqué sketch of a woman’s body, an imagined dialogue between Trump and Epstein, and Trump’s name signed beneath a drawing made to resemble female anatomy. Trump, however, has vigorously denied writing or signing the letter, labeling it a “FAKE” and even suing the Journal over its reporting.
On Monday, that denial was dealt a major blow. The House Oversight Committee confirmed it had received a copy of Epstein’s “birthday book,” which contained the letter in question. The description matches that originally reported by the Journal, including the unusual imagery and Trump’s apparent signature. Significantly, the letter came directly from Epstein’s estate, meaning that if it were fabricated, it would have had to be planted among Epstein’s belongings long before his death.
Despite this, Trump and his allies have continued to insist the letter is fraudulent. Vice President JD Vance dismissed the Journal’s report as “complete and utter bullshit,” while White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich called for legal action against the paper’s parent company, News Corp, arguing the signature clearly does not match Trump’s well-known autograph. Pro-Trump commentators echoed this view, comparing the handwriting to official signatures and branding the letter a forgery.
But experts and critics quickly pointed out that Trump’s denial had inconsistencies. Trump claimed that drawing was out of character for him, saying, “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures.” Yet records show that Trump regularly produced doodles during that era, even donating signed drawings to charity auctions in the early 2000s. In 2004, just a year after the birthday letter, he provided two sketches to a nonprofit fundraiser.
The signature issue is also less clear-cut than Trump’s defenders suggest. While his official presidential autograph is famously jagged and angular, there are numerous examples of him signing his first name in a looser, loopier style similar to the one on the Epstein letter. These include letters sent in the 1980s and 1990s to public figures such as New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, CNN host Larry King, and New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has also displayed a 2014 letter signed in the same style. Notably, Epstein himself owned a Trump book inscribed with a comparable “Donald” signature from 1997.
Taken together, these records undermine Trump’s claim that the letter is inconsistent with his handwriting habits. The fact that the document came from Epstein’s own possessions further complicates his denial. While Trump continues to frame the controversy as defamation, the evidence suggests his past friendship with Epstein may have been closer and stranger than he has acknowledged.
It appears Trump often used this looser signature style in more personal contexts, where signing only his first name felt appropriate. If anything, that detail strengthens the case for the letter’s authenticity. Still, his allies continue to insist otherwise, even after their earlier claims about Trump “not drawing pictures” were disproven.
Ultimately, whether Trump actually authored the letter may not change much. It adds little to the broader understanding of his relationship with Epstein. Yet, this is a fight Trump himself picked one that now seems like yet another miscalculation in his administration’s handling of the Epstein controversy.
