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.

Epstein, the Clintons, and Trump

There is nothing wrong with people making jokes about the Clintons being responsible for the death of Jeffrey Epstein.   Bill and  Hillary are fair game for rough satire. Their records for ruthlessness together with their unpopularity with many people  and the convenient timing of Epstein’s demise would naturally lead to a lot of people having fun on the internet. My favorite  among the ones I’ve seen is a picture of Hillary in a nurse’s uniform with the caption something like “the Nurse at Epstein’s Jail”. It calls to mind the particularly appropriate image of Nurse Ratched.

 Neither is there much wrong with private citizens speculating that the Clintons really might have had Epstein done in as long as they don’t  get carried away and confuse their speculation with knowledge.  People enjoy toying with notions of conspiracies, and within bounds it is usually fairly harmless.  Besides it is not as though one would  say the Clintons have such high scruples as to make  such a thing  impossible.

However, that does not apply to the President of the United States. The person holding that office has a responsibility to hold his  tongue on certain kinds of humor and keep any thoughts about imagined conspiracies to himself.  Trump should learn that and wait to see what, if anything,  an investigation turns up. He not only needs to grow into the office. He needs to grow up.