Trump says he doesn't ‘draw pictures'. But many of his sketches sold at auction

Straits Times

19-07-2025

The drawings, many of which appear to be done with a thick, black marker, also prominently feature his signature.
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump mounted a vigorous rebuttal on July 17 night to a report in The Wall Street Journal that he sent a birthday greeting with a sexually suggestive drawing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
His alibi: 'I don't draw pictures,' he wrote on Truth Social.
But a review of the president's past reveals that, for years, Mr Trump was a high-profile doodler – or at least suggested he was. In the early 2000s, he regularly donated drawings to charities in New York.
The drawings, many of which appear to be done with a thick, black marker and prominently feature his signature are not dissimilar to how the Journal describes the birthday note he sent Epstein.
'It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it's usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,' he wrote in his 2008 book, Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success.
After Mr Trump was elected president, some of the drawings he signed were auctioned off for thousands of dollars – even as he wrote in his book that 'art may not be my strong point'.
The president has denied reports before – only for them to later be confirmed by audio or photos, such as his comments captured on 'Access Hollywood' in which he bragged about grabbing women's genitals, or photos of him flushing documents down the toilet.
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The focus on Mr Trump's drawings comes as many of his most ardent supporters are calling for transparency around the investigation into Epstein, who was in a New York City jail cell awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges when he died by suicide in 2019.
On July 17 night, Mr Trump said he was authorising
Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Epstein.
The president vehemently denied the reporting from the Journal and threatened to sue the company, but the report raised new questions about his ties to Epstein.
'As the president has said, the Wall Street Journal printed fake news and he doesn't draw things like the outlet described,' Mr Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement.
Mr Trump often donated sketches of the Manhattan skyline.
Over the years, Mr Trump has donated his artwork to various charities, with many of his sketches focused on the same stretch of Manhattan skyline.
These sketches would have been donated during the same time period that the Journal says Mr Trump sent Epstein a note 'of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker', and featuring Mr Trump's signature. NYTIMES