Related Articles
This evening, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report on letters allegedly gifted to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday and compiled in a 2003 album by Ghislane Maxwell, also a convicted sex offender. According to the newspaper, among the dozen of letters from Epstein’s associates was a note bearing Donald Trump‘s name outlined by a drawing of a naked woman that also enclosed the text: “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.”
The president on Tuesday denied that he wrote the letter or drew the picture in an interview with the Journal, threatening to sue the newspaper if it published the story. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said, according to the Journal. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” Despite the president’s insistence that’s he’s never doodled during his 79 years on earth, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Take for example, this mediocre sketch of the Manhattan skyline drawn by Trump that raked in $30,000 at an auction. Featuring the Trump Tower at the center, the picture was created by the now-president two decades ago for a charity event.
Then there’s the marker drawing of the Empire State Building that Trump scrawled for another charity auction in 1995, which sold in 2017 for $16,000.
Trump himself has boasted about his artistic benevolence, and in a 2010 book titled Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success, he wrote: “Sometimes being a giver will open you up to new talents. Each year I donate an autographed doodle to the Doodle for Hunger auction at Tavern on the Green. It takes me a few minutes to draw something.… Art may not be my strong point, but the end result is help for people who need it.”
According to Journal, the album was part of the documents reviewed by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell following allegations of sexual abuse. It’s unclear if any of the pages in the leather-bound collection are part of the Trump administration’s recent examination.
News of the alleged letter arrives amid an ongoingMAGA revoltas the president’s supporters continue to condemn the Justice Department’s memo announcing the administration’s belief that Epstein killed himself in prison, and that the department was effectively closing its case. The president’s relationship with Epstein has been under renewed scrutiny since. The pair were photographed together many times during the 1990s and early 2000s, were shot on video at a party together, and Trump appeared in flight logs for Epstein’s private jet.
Trump today continued to deny that he signed the letter or scribbled the bawdy drawing. “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” he ranted on Truth Social. “These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.”
