{"id":315034,"date":"2025-09-10T07:22:41","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T07:22:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=315034"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:16:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:16:36","slug":"trump-white-house-struggles-to-explain-away-latest-epstein-bombshell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=315034","title":{"rendered":"Trump White House struggles to explain away latest Epstein bombshell"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Bowden \u2013 The Independent Sept 9, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Trump with suspected Mossad agent and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein in the 1990’s.<\/p><\/div>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s comms team and legion of loyal defenders were back at work spinning the latest development in the Jeffrey Epstein case<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

News broke late Monday afternoon that members of the House Oversight Committee had received a batch of files from the estate of Epstein, who died in federal custody in 2019. Almost immediately, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal<\/em> and Democrats on the committee revealed that the batch contained the original copy of the so-called \u201cbirthday book\u201d compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell for her then boyfriend\u2019s 50th birthday celebration \u2014 including a \u201cbawdy\u201d letter supposedly penned to Epstein by Trump.<\/p>\n

The note purported to have been written by the then real-estate mogul imagines<\/a> a conversation between Epstein and Trump, in which the two reminisce about a \u201cwonderful secret\u201d they supposedly share. It was first reported by the WSJ <\/em>in July, prompting a furious denial by the White House and a $10bn lawsuit against the paper, its journalists and owner Rupert Murdoch. Originally, the White House claimed that the letter was \u201cfake and nonexistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, the White House\u2019s explanation remained firm. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and other members of the Trump comms team declared that the signature on the letter was a forgery, though it bears an impeccable resemblance to other signatures verifiably made by the president over the years, including during his time in the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal PROVES this entire \u201cBirthday Card\u201d story is false.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I have said all along, it\u2019s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,\u201d Leavitt wrote on X (formerly Twitter). \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Budowich, another White House official, added: \u201cTime for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it\u2019s not his signature!\u201d<\/p>\n

But there was no explanation for why the Epstein estate would have forged Trump\u2019s signature \u2014 and Maxwell herself has already validated the authenticity of the book itself, though she told the Justice Department she couldn\u2019t remember whether she\u2019d solicited a note from Trump for the birthday book. During an interview with Trump\u2019s former lawyer, Todd Blanche, Maxwell said<\/a> she was commissioned to create the book by Epstein himself.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s $10bn lawsuit against Murdoch and the WSJ claims that \u201cno authentic letter or drawing exists\u201d while declaring that Murdoch \u201cauthorized the publication of the Article after President Trump put them both on notice that the letter was fake and nonexistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

JD Vance, the Vice President, seemed to suggest it didn\u2019t exist: \u201cWhere is this letter?\u201d he tweeted in July.<\/p>\n

Democrats on the Oversight Committee are pledging to continue pushing for more documents from the Epstein estate and the Department of Justice. Survivors of Epstein\u2019s sex crimes also met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week, and have asked for a meeting with Trump, further complicating the issue for a White House that wants to paint the issue as merely a partisan exercise.<\/p>\n

On Monday, House Oversight Democrats took a victory lap and pledged to keep the pressure on all parties involved to see more documents and files released. Republicans on the committee, by comparison, did not mention the publication of the letter or the new batch of files received from the Epstein estate on social media at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s amazing to me here is that this is happening with a Republican House and a Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee,\u201d Punchbowl\u2019s Jake Sherman commented.<\/p>\n

Andrew Bates, a former comms staffer in the Biden White House who now owns a Democratic strategy firm, responded: \u201cYes, thanks to pressure brought by [ranking Democratic member] @RepRobertGarcia and [Oversight committee Democrats].\u201d<\/p>\n

Even a focus on other men linked to the late convicted sex offender and pedophile could be problematic for Trump, and Democrats on the Oversight committee have pledged to highlight any connections to Epstein\u2019s crimes uncovered in their review of A continued trickle of Epstein-related news is likely the last thing the president wants, as he and his team have scolded reporters for a continued focus on what he describes as a \u201cDemocrat hoax\u201d.<\/p>\n

Few in Trump\u2019s Maga base are likely to directly suspect the president of illegal activity without proof. The real issue, however, is the lethargy the issue could inflict upon younger members of the Trump-voting coalition who emerged in a big way in 2024 \u2014 but could be difficult to turn out again in 2028 and beyond for future Republican presidential runs if they view the Epstein issue as an area where Trump failed to deliver on promises.<\/p>\n

Vance and others in the Trump coalition called on the Epstein files to be released by the administration were they to come to power.<\/p>\n

The general lack of transparency around the investigation is now an issue all on its own, not just for the White House, but for congressional Republicans, many of whom are facing re-election next year. Even Speaker Mike Johnson has shown the kind of pressure he\u2019s under as it relates to Epstein; he was forced<\/a> on Monday to walk back a comment<\/a> he made last week claiming that Trump was \u201can FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.\u201d<\/p>\n

No one really knows where this goes from here, but at least for now it seems that the attention on the Epstein issue is too hot for Trump or his allies in Congress to squash it.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Files from Epstein\u2019s estate contain a letter from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, which speaks of a \u201cwonderful secret\u201d they supposedly share. Earlier the White House had dismissed the letter as \u201cfake and non-existent\u201d. Now they claim that Trump\u2019s signature on the letter was forged. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Inside_the_White_House_and_Washingtons_Beltway"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315034"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":315038,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315034\/revisions\/315038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}