Trump mired in Epstein controversy as Wall Street Journal reports on 2003 letter
Warning: The following story contains graphic content.
WASHINGTON — The controversy over U.S. President Donald Trump 's handling of records from the Jeffrey Epstein investigation entered a new dimension Thursday as his administration struggles to make good on its promises to release details on the sex trafficking case involving a one-time friend of the now-president.
Trump promised a lawsuit after The Wall Street Journal described a sexually suggestive letter that the newspaper says bore Trump's name and was included in a 2003 album for Epstein's 50th birthday. Trump denied writing the letter, calling it 'false, malicious, and defamatory.'
It came after Trump in recent days has berated as 'weaklings' supporters vying for more records from the Epstein probe, after years of courting political support from those who have stoked claims of a coverup in the case to protect wealthy friends of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on federal charges of trafficking of underage girls.
Trump has also shielded his attorney general from being questioned about the case after she walked back claims of the existence of a 'client list' of elites who participated in Epstein's crimes, and has even taken to claiming without evidence that files were doctored by Democrats.
In an administration that prides itself on changing the narrative on negative storylines, the Epstein saga has had remarkable staying power, thanks in part to infighting at high levels of government, Trump's blistering criticism of his own base and the head-scratching mystery of why documents his own administration promised to unlock will remain buried — seemingly for good.
Thursday's disclosure — coupled with frustration from Trump-allied lawmakers on Capitol Hill — pushed Trump to abruptly reverse course and direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to try to make some of the documents in the case public.
Bondi said she would seek court permission Friday to release grand jury information, but it would require a judge's approval, and she and Trump were silent on the additional evidence collected by federal law enforcement in the sprawling investigation that Bondi last week announced she would not release.
A newly revealed letter to Epstein
The letter revealed by The Wall Street Journal was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before the wealthy financier was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling-out with Trump. The letter bearing Trump's name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,' according to the newspaper. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely.
Maxwell was arrested in 2020 and convicted a year later on charges that she helped Epstein lure girls to be sexually abused.
Trump slammed the story in a lengthy social media post Thursday night, saying he spoke to both to the paper's owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its top editor, Emma Tucker, and told them the letter was 'fake.' Trump promised to sue the paper over the story, saying: 'These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures.'
U.S. Vice President JD Vance said The Wall Street Journal 'should be ashamed' for publishing it.
'Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?' he wrote on X.
Trump tries to move on
The Trump administration has been struggling for nearly two weeks to contain the fallout of the Justice Department's announcement that no more Epstein evidence in the government's possession would be released to the public despite promises of transparency from Bondi. The Justice Department's reversal on the Epstein files not only angered Trump supporters but touched off a testy exchange at the White House last week between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino that neither official has publicly addressed.
The Justice Department has yet to provide a full accounting of its reversal months after Bondi handed out binders to conservative influencers at the White House that read the 'Epstein Files: Phase 1' and 'the most transparent administration.' Bondi earlier this week refused to answer questions from reporters about the Epstein files and her relationship with Bongino.
The White House on Thursday closed the door on calls for a further inquiry into the Epstein investigation, saying the president would not be recommending the appointment of a special counsel.
Even though his administration for months had hyped the expected release of more documents, Trump slammed his own supporters earlier this week for their furor over the Epstein files saga. Trump called it a 'hoax' and tried to place blame on Democrats, accusing former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as former FBI Director James Comey — without evidence — of making up such documents.
Earlier Thursday, the controversy over the Epstein files had snarled the House's efforts to pass a bill that claws back $9.4 billion in federal spending, as Democrats used procedural moves to force votes on releasing the documents in tandem with the package.
That frustrated House Republicans, who tried to forge a solution that could include a resolution supporting the release of 'credible' files pertaining to Epstein and his activities.
Trump is no stranger to scrutiny
Trump himself has faced years of scrutiny over his own private life. Last year, for instance, he was convicted of felony charges in New York in connection with hush money payments meant to silence an adult film star's sex claims ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Trump has denied the relationship.
And Trump's ties to Epstein have been well-documented, though the president has not been accused of misconduct in connection with their social relationship.
Video footage unearthed by NBC News following Epstein's federal indictment in 2019 showed the two chatting at a party at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in 1992. The video, recorded at a time when Trump was newly divorced, shows him surrounded by young women, whom NBC identified as cheerleaders for the Buffalo Bills.
It also depicts the two men standing and gesturing at the women on the dance floor.
'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,' Trump said when the video emerged. 'He was a fixture in Palm Beach. I had a falling-out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years.'
Previously released files included a 2016 deposition in which an accuser recounted spending several hours with Epstein at Trump's Atlantic City casino but didn't say if she actually met Trump and did not accuse him of any wrongdoing.
Eric Tucker And Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press
Associated Press reporters Seung Min Kim and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Digital contracts are the norm today. Is there still power in a written signature?
Some of the most powerful people in the world can be recognized by their signatures. Prime Minister Mark Carney's signature adorns Canadian currency, from his time as head of the Bank of Canada. And U.S. President Donald Trump regularly displays his oversized, sloping signature for the cameras with each new executive order. But these days, it's far more common for most of us to sign our names on a touch screen, or to simply click a box on an online form, than to sign your name with a pen on paper. Author Christine Rosen isn't happy about it. "We're actively choosing to go back to a way of life where a mark is the same as a signature. So it's a devolution in terms of our skills as human beings," she told The Sunday Magazine's Peter Mitton. Rosen's book The Extinction of Experience looks at how the onslaught of digital life is hollowing out real-life experiences, like the act of physically signing your name. "I fear that our willingness to suspend that small, everyday action is sort of symbolic of some of the other important things we've discarded in our haste to embrace digitally mediated forms of communication," she said. Despite their relative rarity in most people's lives today — and the legal ambiguity that came with the introduction of electronic signatures — written signatures still carry power as a personal artistic expression, whether you've carefully designed your own or paid a professional to do it for you. E-signatures around for decades E-signatures are just over 25 years old in the U.S. In June 2000, then-U.S. president Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act into law. The act allowed for electronic records, including digital versions of a signature, to be used for business transactions that earlier required a person's written signature for validation. In Canada, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which became law in April 2000, outlines the use of e-signatures. Provinces and territories have followed suit with similar legislation. John Gregory, a retired lawyer in Toronto, says when Clinton signed that bill, some worried that the signature's "ceremonial function" might lose some of its power. "It makes you take it seriously. Oh, jeez, I'm signing this. This is important. I should know what I'm doing. Do I really agree to this?" said Gregory, who previously worked in the U.S. on developing government policies around what happens legally when paper trails become increasingly digital. While personal opinions on an e-signature's weight may vary, the law has since moved on. Gregory pointed to a 2017 case in Saskatchewan where a man who injured himself in a go-kart crash said a digital waiver he signed by checking a box shouldn't absolve the company who owned the track of any liability. The court ruled that, in fact, that check was as valid as a pen-and-paper signature. And, in 2024, Saskatchewan's Court of King's Bench upheld a decision that a thumbs-up emoji was confirmation of a contract between two agricultural companies. One of the companies involved asked the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on that decision; it's unclear if the Court will do so. Do young people care about signatures? Filomena Cozzolino, 27, styled her signature after her paternal grandmother, with whom she shares her name. "When I was maybe 12 or 13, I found one of her IDs and I wanted to try to copy her signature," said the publishing and creative writing student at Sheridan College in Mississauga, Ont. "Not only do we share a name, but we can share our signatures, since she's no longer here to share hers anymore." Some of her classmates had a more business-like approach to them. "I have very messy handwriting, actually, because I'm left-handed. So everything smudges and ... once I learned cursive, just went with the flow," said Mikayla Nicholls, 28. Zainab Bakjsh, 24, writes her signature in Arabic, which she says looks better and is easier to write than when she does it in English. But beyond that, she's not given it much thought. "It's just a signature. When I need to do something at the bank, or like renewing my health card, is probably the only time that I sign," she said. Boutique signature craft While the age of correspondence via fountain pen on parchment may be long gone, there's still a niche of people interested in using signatures as a personal flourish — and even a market if you're looking for a professional to craft one for you. "I believe that your signature is literally your face. I mean, regardless of your profession, you can impress people around you with this beautiful signature," said Elena Jovanovic, head calligrapher at Florida-based MySign Studio. The business crafts custom signatures for patrons, offering options in multiple script styles. Their calligraphers will then teach you how to draw them on your own. But it'll cost you, with services ranging from $100 to $200 US. "Many people around the world create their first signature during their teenage years and continue to use it throughout their lives. Typically, these signatures lack creativity and elegance," Jovanovic said. Sometimes patrons request certain artistic effects, such as adding a lion or butterfly to the signature. Other requests are more esoteric. Jovanovic recalled one customer who asked that they customize his signature by introducing a four-letter profanity into his surname — presumably only for the signature, and not as part of a legal name change. "And I was like, why not?" she said.
CBC
an hour ago
- CBC
Trump is slashing public radio funding. Here's why it will hit rural communities hardest
Every morning, Gwen Johnson, a resident of the small Appalachian community of Jackhorn, Ky., wakes up to the voices and sounds of her favourite public radio station. Johnson, 67, listens to FM over breakfast as she gets ready for work, while driving in her car and throughout the day. "Through the highs and lows of my life, it's always been a real comfort to me — when you can just flip on the radio and maybe get a human voice," said the non-profit professional and former radio programmer. "It's really added a lot of happiness in dark times." Johnson's preferences are mountain community radio station WMMT 88.7 and NPR affiliate WEKU. But now, they're among the stations set to lose crucial financial support as the administration of President Donald Trump rescinds congressional funding to public media. Trump argues the cuts will save the U.S. government billions of dollars a year in wasteful spending. The rollback, however, will have a serious impact on rural communities, where public radio is a disseminator of news and entertainment, and a lifeline during public emergencies and natural disasters, according to residents, media interests and others who spoke to CBC News. Johnson thinks public spending probably needs to be "reined in" in certain areas. "But this is an area that has been very troublesome," she said. "I am greatly concerned." She added she's worried about whether this move infringes on freedom of speech and freedom of the press. "I feel like one of our freedoms, our First Amendment rights, is being upheld with the radio station." 'It's pretty overwhelming' Federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is part of the $9.1 million US worth of cuts outlined in the Rescissions Act, which rescinds congressionally approved funding allocated to public broadcasters and foreign aid. Congress approved the cuts on Friday morning, sending the package to Trump's desk for his final signature. The CPB, a private corporation, disseminates some $1.1 billion to NPR, PBS, and local TV and radio stations across the country every year, with the bulk of its operating budget set aside for direct grants to local public radio stations. Senator Mike Rounds said last week that he had secured a carve-out for more than a dozen Native American radio stations in which they'd receive funding from the Interior Department. But it's unclear if that has been approved or how much it would help. Already, some community radio stations are looking at different funding models and revenue streams to offset the blow of the cuts. One of them is the aforementioned Kentucky station, WMMT 88.7. Based in the heart of coal country, it has operated for nearly 40 years. Outside Kentucky, its signal stretches into Virginia, West Virginia, parts of East Tennessee and a bit of Southeast Ohio, reaching 18,000 people weekly, according to the station's Nielsen survey data. "It's hard to imagine," said Roger May, director of artistic programs at Appalshop, an independent Appalachian media company. WMMT is its flagship radio station. "I mean, I'm looking at it through the lens of our community radio station, and when I pull back and try to imagine what that's like for all the other stations, it's pretty overwhelming." About a third of the station's funding comes from the CPB, and a clawback on that money would drastically impact its operations over the next two fiscal years, according to May. It currently has one full-time employee and relies on a network of local disc jockeys to run its programming. The station's development team is looking for ways to source the money from elsewhere. It has long received support from within the community — some small businesses, including a bakery that Johnson manages, serve as underwriters for the station. "It isn't a political issue. It's a community service issue, one that everyone is going to be impacted by who relies on community radio stations and public radio in the country," said May. "We're just one example of many in the country of rural spaces that really do rely on something as simple sounding as community radio. It really is a vital key in how we share information." An emergency service When widespread flash flooding hit eastern Kentucky three years ago, WMMT — after being briefly knocked offline — became a vehicle for disseminating public service announcements, news and "a slice of normality" as people recovered from the disaster, said May. When Hurricane Helene made landfall in the U.S. last year, devastating parts of North Carolina, another community radio station shared a constant stream of updates and emergency guidance from the government. "We hear stories upon stories of people telling us, 'OK, well, we got a crank radio or we had a crank radio, and we knew you'd be on,'" said Ele Ellis, CEO and general manager at Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville, N.C. Some would crank up the volume and put the radio on a mailbox, and neighbours would gather to listen, as the story goes, while the station reported on water distribution sites — Asheville's water system had shut down. "That's what they had to do to get information that was going to help them live," said Ellis. Blue Ridge covers more than a dozen counties in the western part of the state, reaching about 90,000 listeners on a weekly basis. "We hit every valley and every mountain in this 14-county area. So there are people that wouldn't get any other public radio if they didn't have us," she said. The station stands to lose about six per cent of its budget, or $330,000 a year, because of the cuts. That could lead to job losses or taking down signals in communities where it's more expensive to keep signal towers operating, said Ellis. The U.S. uses an emergency alert system that blares out over the radio's AM and FM channels, overriding other programming to deliver crucial information during a national emergency. But the integrity of that system is at risk without public funding, critics of the Rescissions Act have argued. "If there's a tornado watch, tornado warning, a flood watch, a flood warning, a blizzard, anything Mother Nature could dole out — people can know it's coming," said Ellis. That would change without the funding, and if people don't notice a change right away, they might not understand the role that public radio plays in a community, she added. "But they don't think about what happens in eight months, when one of our towers fails for some fairly fixable reason, that we're going to have to make a decision about whether we want to spend money on that tower." Trump's battle with public media In May, Trump signed a separate executive order calling on the CPB to cease funding to NPR and PBS, though the organization has argued it's not a federal agency subject to Trump's authority. The president has also frequently criticized NPR and PBS for what he characterizes as left-wing bias, framing funding cuts as an end to " taxpayer subsidization of biased media." The leaders of both organizations testified before a House oversight committee in March in response to the allegations of ideological bias. NPR's CEO has argued the cuts would be a risk to public safety, and Rep. Lisa Murkowski — one of two House Republicans to vote against the Rescissions Act — argued that public broadcasting saves lives. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt disagreed, saying, "I am not sure how NPR helps the public safety of our country, but I do know that NPR, unfortunately, has become really just a propaganda voice for the left." Public radio plays a vital role in the small communities where these cuts would hit hardest, both on a daily basis and in emergency scenarios, said Laura Lee, a former NPR producer and editorial director of NC Local, a statewide media organization in North Carolina. "We're talking about communities where local news outlets have shuttered, where there's not access to quality, vetted, independent news and information that people need about their school board, about their city council, about the agriculture industry in their communities." While a 2023 Pew research paper showed public radio audiences had been steadily declining in the years prior, it found that a fifth of U.S. adults get local news from the radio. "The word 'news' has even gotten somewhat politicized, but people need information and these outlets are very consciously conduits of that information for people," Lee added, noting many journalists and editors who report on these communities also live in them and understand their needs. "The Trump administration has been vocal in their explicit criticism of the media, and I've watched as local journalists have sort of set that aside and continued about the business of getting the community the information that they need. And so, I'm heartened by that diligence."
Global News
5 hours ago
- Global News
Global News at 6 Toronto: July 19
Toronto's Junior Carnival is back for it's 58th year. It's a vibrant day filled with thousands of young masqueraders, music and live performances celebrating Caribbean culture and identity. In the United States, President Donald Trump is going after the Wall Street Journal, claiming the publication libelled him in a report that the Republican leader gave Jeffrey Epstein a birthday note that included crude drawings and cryptic messages.
