We obtained (*5*) from the House Oversight Committee late Monday. And not like final week, these truly contained some actual information.
The huge information is that we lastly are ready to see the letter signed in now-President Donald Trump’s name for Epstein’s fiftieth birthday again in 2003, which the Wall Street Journal first reported again in July.
Despite Trump’s declare that the lewd letter is a faux – he’s suing the Journal over the matter – two new components seem to lend legitimacy to it. For one, it was turned over by Epstein’s property, that means it had apparently been in Epstein’s possession. For one other, it encompasses a “Donald” signature that appears to match contemporaneous documents circulating on-line from that interval.
But that’s not the solely factor we discovered from the documents themselves and the reactions.
Below are some takeaways.
Trump has made a sequence of seemingly weird statements and choices vis-a-vis Epstein.
These embody his administration’s sudden and abrupt reversal on releasing the documents, his false denial that Attorney General Pam Bondi had advised him his title appeared in them, his slow disclosure on Epstein having recruited a lady who labored at Mar-a-Lago, and a variety of easily disproven claims about Epstein and his private ties to him.
But the letter, a part of a set of letters compiled right into a “birthday book” for Epstein, is wanting prefer it might be up there with the remainder of them.
We don’t know for sure that Trump wrote or signed the letter. But as famous above, loads of indicators are pointing in that path. Trump beforehand rested his denials on the false declare that he didn’t ever draw footage (the letter features a drawing of a feminine silhouette), when in truth there are plenty Trump doodles in the public record.
It’s all significantly bizarre on condition that the letter wouldn’t appear all that damning for Trump on its floor, subsequent to all the things else we all know. We already knew he was buddies with Epstein on this interval. We additionally knew he has demonstrated a bent for lewd feedback.
It would possibly by no means be confirmed that Trump himself drew the image. And there stays no proof Trump has achieved something fallacious.
But we obtained extra but motive Monday night time to query his relationship with Epstein and his dealing with of the matter.
Another doc in the “birthday book” part caught various folks’s consideration and was highlighted by Democrats.
It’s a letter with a photograph of Epstein holding an outsized, novelty $22,500 verify made to appear like a fee from Trump to Epstein.
“Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women!” the textual content reads. “Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [REDACTED] to Donald Trump for $22,500. … Even though I handled the deal I didn’t bet any of the money on the girl!”
The redacted portion seems to be a girl’s title.
We don’t know the full context of the photograph – NCS has reached out to the White House and people recognized associated to the photograph. It might simply be a crude joke, and one Trump didn’t have something to do with apart from being talked about. But the letter reinforces how Trump’s title might seem in the documents in methods the White House would favor to not have to deal with.
The developments Monday night time appeared to affirm one thing we in all probability already knew: that a number of individuals are going to moderately blindly toe Trump’s line.
It didn’t take lengthy after the birthday letter was launched for pro-Trump influencers to rapidly embrace his speaking factors. A high White House aide claimed the signature on the Trump birthday letter was faux, evaluating it to Trump’s signature on more-recent official documents. And loads of folks jumped on board rapidly.
“Is this really the best they could do? Trump has the most famous signature in the world,” pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson said. “Time to sue [the Journal] into the oblivion.”
“Does the below from the WSJ look like this actual signature from the President? I don’t think so at all. Fake,” fellow pro-Trump influencer Charlie Kirk said.
Some House Republicans echoed the speaking level, with Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee telling NCS he thought the signature could be forged.
None of them appeared to care to verify Trump’s signatures on different documents circulating on-line from the interval in query. Many of them look quite similar to the one on the Epstein birthday letter – from the loopier cursive to the lengthy tail at the finish of the ultimate “d.”
That doesn’t imply that Trump positively wrote the letter. But the signature wouldn’t appear to be any motive to doubt that he did.
It means that some individuals are going to say just about something to seed doubt and defend Trump on this.
The launch of the documents in and of themselves is an attention-grabbing political storyline.
That’s as a result of House Oversight Committee Democrats determined to get forward of their launch on Monday afternoon by posting a picture on X of Trump’s obvious birthday letter.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer criticized them for selectively releasing supplies earlier than the remainder of the tranche was launched.
“It’s appalling Democrats on the Oversight Committee are cherry-picking documents and politicizing information received from the Epstein Estate today,” Comer stated.
A pair factors on that. One is that the letter was clearly already the topic of loads of intrigue, relationship again to the Journal’s July story. The different is that Comer and Republicans have in the previous launched plenty of partial evidence, significantly of their investigations of the Bidens final Congress.
But it’s nonetheless attention-grabbing that Democrats selected to do that.
It might recommend that Democrats are meaning to play extra hardball with the Epstein information. But this challenge has been considerably bipartisan, with some House Republicans supporting the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas of those documents and in some circumstances signing a discharge petition to power the documents’ launch.
There might be some hazard in making all of it look extra partisan.
The remainder of the documents don’t essentially inform us quite a bit. Many of them are lewd and make reference to intercourse and Epstein’s escapades with girls, however not in ways in which would essentially make clear the crimes he was convicted of.
But a pair factors stand out:
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The documents reinforce that Epstein had many highly effective mates, apart from Trump. Letters for his birthday additionally got here bearing the names of former President Bill Clinton and distinguished lawyer Alan Dershowitz. (A Clinton spokesman referred to a earlier assertion that Clinton lower ties earlier than Epstein’s arrest on federal expenses in 2019 and had no data of his crimes. Dershowitz advised the Journal: “It’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written.”)
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We discovered Epstein’s legal professionals advised the committee that they “are not aware of the existence” of an Epstein shopper listing. (Bondi seemed to indicate such a listing existed earlier this 12 months, earlier than the Justice Department stated one didn’t, in truth, exist.)