The House Oversight Committee has obtained its initial set of documents from the estate of the deceased convicted sex offender, including a memo from a “birthday book” of correspondence presented to Epstein in 2003, which purportedly features a suggestive note with President Donald Trump’s name on it.
Democrats on the committee have released a note that showcases typewritten prose encircled by what seems to be the silhouette of a nude female figure, ending with the sentiment: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Beneath the illustration, what appears to be Trump’s distinctive, wavy signature is visible. Trump has consistently denied authoring this letter and initiated a defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, the first publication to report on it.
“I have never drawn a picture in my life. I do not depict women,” he stated to the Journal previously. “This is not my style of language. These are not my expressions.”
The meticulously bound compilation was assembled for Epstein’s 50th birthday celebration in 2003 by his long-standing colleague, Ghislaine Maxwell, now a convicted sex trafficker. It contains letters and illustrations from numerous individuals known to Epstein, including ex-President Bill Clinton and billionaire Leon Black, as reported by the Journal.
The committee’s formal demand for documents from Epstein’s estate sought an extensive array of records, encompassing the birthday book, Epstein’s last will and testament, his 2008 non-prosecution pact with federal prosecutors in Florida, and various financial papers. This investigation marks the most recent in a series of congressional endeavors to resolve lingering queries from Epstein’s 2019 apprehension on federal sex-trafficking offenses and his subsequent death by suicide in a Manhattan correctional facility mere weeks afterward.
The panel has already acquired approximately 33,000 pages of documentation from the Justice Department; however, Democrats have voiced concerns that these revelations offered scant novel details.
“The Oversight Committee has successfully acquired the notorious ‘Birthday Book,’ which includes a note attributed to President Trump that he previously denied the existence of,” stated Rep. Robert Garcia, the leading Democrat on the committee, in an official announcement. “It is imperative for the President to disclose the truth about his knowledge and to release all pertinent Epstein documents. The American public requires answers.”
Taylor Budowich, the White House’s deputy chief of staff for communications, addressed the image on Monday, asserting that “it is not his signature,” simultaneously sharing several more contemporary instances of Trump’s signature.
Epstein’s associations with a wide spectrum of affluent and influential individuals have incited years of conjecture and elaborate conspiracy narratives, especially following Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department’s declaration in July that it possessed no “client list” of individuals involved in Epstein’s predatory activities. This revelation agitated many of Trump’s supporters, who have leveled accusations against the government for purportedly hiding identities and specifics.
Trump and Epstein were observed socializing during the 1990s in Palm Beach, Florida, at which time Epstein often visited Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s exclusive club. Flight records indicate Trump traveled on Epstein’s private aircraft on at least one occasion. Following Epstein’s apprehension in 2019, Trump claimed the two individuals had ceased their association 15 years prior, due to Epstein recruiting some of Trump’s staff.
He has attempted to characterize endeavors to disclose additional Epstein files as a politically driven scheme by Democrats intended to discredit him, labeling the overarching inquiry as “a fabrication.”
“Pardon my vocabulary, but this narrative is absolute and total nonsense. The WSJ ought to be embarrassed for printing it,” Vice President J.D. Vance commented on July 17. “Where is this correspondence? Would you be astonished to find out they never presented it to us prior to publication? Can anyone genuinely believe this resembles Donald Trump’s typical speech?”
The unveiling of the aforementioned birthday book to the public coincides with a bipartisan initiative by two legislators aiming to bypass House leadership and mandate a floor vote on legislation that would oblige the Justice Department to make public all its records pertaining to the Epstein inquiry.
Representatives Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, are leading this endeavor, and require only two additional Republican signatories to achieve the necessary threshold to compel a vote on the House floor. To date, merely four Republicans—Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina—have lent their support to the initiative.
