Sources tell Variety that the White House attempted to block the publication of a Wall St. Journal article about President Donald Trump allegedly writing a letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 that contains suggestive language. The White House threatened legal action against the paper if it went to print with the story, which published on the paper’s website Thursday afternoon.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the letter for Epstein’s birthday, which was part of an album from several people, “is bawdy — like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes: ‘Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.’
On Wednesday, Variety reached out to the White House and the Wall Street Journal for comment about the imminent story and the ensuing back and forth between the two parties. Both declined comment. But the Wall St. Journal spoke with Trump on Tuesday night, and he denied writing the letter. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” he told the WSJ.
The story hit at a time when Trump’s MAGA base is divided over the White House’s handling of documents related to an investigation into Epstein, the late financier who was arrested for sex trafficking of minors in 2019 and died under mysterious circumstances while in custody weeks later. His death was ruled a suicide but has long been the subject of conspiracy theories given his ties to powerful government officials, including Trump and former President Bill Clinton.
The purported letter at the center of the Wall Street Journal story predated Epstein’s arrest in 2019. It also would have been written five years before Epstein pleaded guilty for soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14 in 2008. It is known that the two men were friends, though they reportedly had a falling after Epstein hit on the teenage daughter of a Mar-a-Lago club member in 2008, months before the financier pleaded guilty to the solicitation charge. Trump revoked his membership in the posh club immediately.
The MAGA backlash stems from Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s decision not to release the Epstein investigation files in full. Bondi’s move opened the floodgates on a news cycle that has put Trump on the wrong side of some of his most ardent followers. Many famous backers of Trump including Tucker Carlson, Roseanne Barr and Steve Bannon appear to have turned on the president in recent days over the White House’s handling of the Epstein files. Others like Megyn Kelly and Theo Vonn have been more muted in their criticism but still skeptical and have spent hours on the subject on their various podcasts and platforms.
For the past several days, Trump has downplayed the significance of Bondi’s decision and dismissed calls from politicians to influencers for more transparency into the Epstein investigation, calling the case “pretty boring stuff.” In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump blamed Democrats for pushing a “scam” and “hoax” with regards to his relationship with Epstein.
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“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” he wrote. In an previous post, he wrote: “We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening,” the president wrote. “Let’s not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
Later in the day on Wednesday, the Justice Department fired Maurene Comey, the top prosecutor in the 2019 Epstein case, adding fuel to a story that doesn’t appear to be dying down.
Even after his first stint in jail, Epstein enjoyed long-cultivated relationships within the government — both U.S. and Israeli — as well as New York media circles, academia and even Hollywood, which allowed him entry into events where the richest and most powerful people converge. The Justice Department and FBI said in a memo last week that they found no evidence that Epstein kept an “incriminating ‘client list.’” The memo added: “There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
But Epstein certainly kept a little black book that became part of the public record following his first arrest. Among the Hollywood notables whose contact information appeared in the book were Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey. (Spacey, for one, has called on the White House to release the full Epstein files, saying he has nothing to hide.) In 2015, Gawker published the flight logs from Epstein’s private jet, which showed that Clinton had flown on the private aircraft dubbed the Lolita Express.
From Variety US