Trump and Epstein

 

The big news story of the weekend is the printing of Tump’s supposed 50^th birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump claims the note is fake. Democrats claim it is not only genuine but hard proof that Trump knew about and perhaps participated in Epstein’s crimes.

To me there are two obvious points against authenticity. First the style does not seem like Trump’s. It is not at all like the stuff we have seen from him on X and Truth Social over the last ten years. The second is more important. It is very, very hard to believe that Biden’s DOJ had it, knew it was authentic, and gentlemanly declined to leak it to their friends in the media before the election. Of course people’s style of writing can vary both with time and situation, and the note may have turned up only recently. (I haven’t seen anything on that, and it may be discussed behind a paywall I can’t see over.)

The main arguments for authenticity are the reputation of the Wall Street Journal and the riskiness of making that sort of attack on the president of the United States without being able to back it up. There is something to both of them. The news side of the Journal is not the public relations team for the Democrats that many other papers are, and its editorial side usually favors the Republicans. And with all the threats (sometimes real and successful) of lawsuits by Trump against media companies, one would think that on a story such as this one, prudent editors would want to make sure their reporters had the goods before publishing. As against that Trump’s defenders can argue that some reputations earned in the past may no longer be justified and remind people that well known media organizations have published false stories about Trump before.

It will be interesting to see both how it plays out and whether it matters. My guess is that it will not matter much. It is well known that Trump and Clinton and various other wealthy and/or powerful people knew and socialized with Jeffrey Epstein. It is well known that in his younger days Trump was what people used to call a playboy.  If the note is authentic and can be shown to be so, it probably will not make many of his supporters turn against him.  If it is a forgery and can be shown to be so, it probably will not make many of his opponents less prone to believe the worst about him immediately. If nothing is determined either way, the whole thing probably will just fade away and fairly quickly.