Was Trump in Epstein’s birthday book?

Bombshell or damp squib? The Wall Street Journal has dived into L’Affaire Epstein with a vengeance, reporting tonight that Donald Trump contributed an epistolary effort to a leather-bound birthday book in 2003 for his Palm Beach buddy that contained what it delicately refers to as “bawdy language” as well as a drawing of a naked woman. The letter that has Trump’s name affixed to it apparently concludes, “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.” 

This is catnip for Trump’s detractors who apparently are starting to include a number of disaffected MAGA followers. They’re disenchanted by Trump’s volte-face. One day his officials are going to reveal everything about Jeffrey Epstein’s activities; the next he’s fuming that only a nincompoop would pay any attention to them. Now that the Journal has published the lubricious letter, presumably with the sanction of its owner Rupert Murdoch, Trump is vowing to sue the pants off it. “This is a fake thing,” he declared. 

But the fact that it appeared in the Journal carries an added sting. And given the immense sums that Murdoch has already disgorged for previous lawsuits aimed at Fox, it seems improbable that he’s unduly troubled by the prospect of facing Trump in court. Anyway, Trump would have to prove that the allegations are false, which is a tall order. He’s not going to want to go into discovery because there could be a number of things to discover that he doesn’t want discovered. 

Ever since Trump brushed aside his attorney general Pam Bondi and leaned in at a cabinet meeting a week ago to parry a question about Epstein, I’ve wondered about his avidity to deflect attention from Epstein. Epstein, Shmepstein seemed to be his attitude. “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” Trump snarled. “I can’t believe you’re asking a question on Epstein at a time like this, where we’re having some of the greatest success, and also tragedy, with what happened in Texas. It just seems like a desecration.” 

Sorry, Donald. It didn’t. At a moment when the CIA has been busted for concealing its links to Lee Harvey Oswald, it doesn’t seem particularly outlandish to wonder about Epstein’s ties to Trump and a variety of other figures, including former president Bill Clinton, who visited his macabre island. According to Nina Burleigh, who is the author of The Trump Women: Part of the Deal, “It just makes sense that these two would be involved with each other as friends at the very least. From Michael Wolff’s reporting, Epstein called Trump his closest friend. And then you have all these women that link them together. They were two peas in a pod.” 

The big question will be whether more surfaces about the intimate relationship between Epstein and Trump. The Washington Post casts a rather skeptical eye today on the notion that Trump engaged in any wrongdoing. It points out that Trump and Epstein had an unamicable confrontation over who would get to purchase Maison de l’Amitie in 2004 in Palm Beach.  

But as the Epstein controversy swirls around Trump, he may be hoist by his own petard. No one has been a more assiduous promoter of legends about the deep state than Trump. Now he himself stands accused as the ringleader of a deep state conspiracy to quash the truth about a child predator. 

Maybe Trump can cruise past the brouhaha over Epstein. He’s done it in the past, whether it’s Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal. More recently, he’s been on a roll, bending Congress to his will. CBS just announced that it’s canceling Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” next year. But somehow Trump cannot escape the Palm Beach story. The more he protests, the guiltier he looks.