After the House Oversight Committee released Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book Monday, Donald Trump’s signature has been placed under the microscope.
Trump and the White House have consistently denied that the president signed a sexually suggestive letter and sketch found in the 2003 document.
MAGA Republicans and Trump’s inner circle have rushed to the president’s defense, with Taylor Budowich, the deputy chief of staff for communications, posting several photos on X in an attempt to highlight differences in the signatures.
Trump’s signature was once described as replicating a city skyline or a seismograph, the instrument that records motion of the ground during earthquakes. It has, however, evolved over the years.
One notable difference compared to Trump’s signature on a drawing commissioned in 2004, a year after Epstein’s 55th birthday, for example, is that the signature on Epstein’s letter reads only “Donald,” using the president’s first name. According to The New York Times, Trump typically reserves using his first name for signing personal notes.
US media has been pouring over previous examples of the Trump signature in attempts to compare them to the Epstein document.
The Times has obtained at least six letters written by Trump to New York City officials from 1987 through 2001 which are signed off only using his first name while The Washington Post has reviewed more than a dozen versions of Trump’s signature, many of which are included in his book Letters to Trump.
Several forensic analysts who reviewed the signatures for the Post said they could not determine whether the disputed signature was Trump’s.
John Reznikoff, a forensic document examiner, also urged caution about drawing conclusions on the Epstein documents.
“I don’t believe you can say anything about the veracity of the document from the scans,” he told the BBC. “You need the original. One would have to see if it’s live ink... to see if the printing was applied later.”
The note was part of a birthday album compiled by Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the birthday book on Monday after subpoenaing the documents from Epstein’s estate late last month.
The Wall Street Journal first reported in July about the letter and accompanying drawing of a nude woman, punctuated by a squiggly “Donald”.
Trump has never been accused of wrongdoing in connection with the Epstein case and vehemently denies authoring the note. He is suing the Journal owner Rupert Murdoch and publisher Dow Jones for $10 billion.
Hours after telling NBC News that Epstein’s birthday book was a “dead issue” on Tuesday morning, Trump dismissed the claims as “nonsense” as he headed to dinner in Washington, D.C., flaunting his federal takeover of police and military presence in the city.
“It’s not my signature,” Trump began. “And it’s not the way I speak … And frankly, you're wasting your time.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also denied the allegations, referencing the suit against the Journal, stating: “The president did not write that letter. He did not sign those documents. He maintains that position. And that position will be argued in court by his lawyers.”
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