House Speaker Mike Johnson maintained his staunch support of President Donald Trump after the House Oversight Committee released a “bawdy” letter to Jeffrey Epstein, allegedly penned by the president.
As he stepped into the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, reporters asked the Louisiana Republican about the card, which includes a signature that looks similar to other times the president autographed letters and notes, in the decades before he was in office.
But Johnson disputed that the signature was Trump’s “Donald” Sharpie scrawl.
“I don’t — and they say it’s not,” Johnson said when asked if he supports the White House denial that Trump authored the note.
The House Oversight Committee on Monday released a tranche of files related to the investigation into the late convicted sex offender’s crimes and trafficking of young women and girls. Among them was the birthday message, which came roughly two months after The Wall Street Journal had first reported on the letter’s existence.
The president reportedly sent the letter to Epstein for the late financier and sex offender’s 50th birthday. The card features a drawing of a nude woman’s outline reportedly made by the president with his alleged signature seemingly mimicking a woman’s pubic hair.
The president has vehemently denied that he wrote the letter. In addition, he sued The Wall Street Journal, its publisher News Corp and its owner Rupert Murdoch for $10 billion.
Johnson, a devout Southern Baptist who in the past has spoken about how he and his son have an app on their phone that monitors whether the other uses pornography, has stood by the president.
Last week, Johnson claimed that the president had served as an FBI informant on Epstein. The speaker later clarified that he had simply reiterated what the victim’s attorney had said, which is that Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago and helped prosecutors expose Epstein.
The release of the file comes as Johnson and House Republican leadership seeks to stop an attempt by a handful of Republicans and House Democrats to release the files. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) filed their discharge petition last week.
If a majority of House members sign onto the petition, they can force a vote on the House floor to release files related to Epstein. So far, three Republicans–Reps. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)–have signed the petition.
Almost all Democrats have signed onto the discharge petition or have signaled that they will do so. But so far, most House Republicans have refused to sign onto the petition.
Trump once again blasted the bipartisan push for the release of the files as a “a Democrat hoax that never ends.” This came despite the fact that many of Epstein’s victims visited Capitol Hill last week demanding the release of the files.
But much of the energy and fervor to release files related to Epstein came from the right, mostly in hopes that it would implicate Democratic elites such as former president Bill Clinton and others who befriended Epstein.
Many of Trump’s allies, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, pledged to release the files. That led to a fury when the FBI and the Justice Department released a two-page memo in July saying that no “client list” existed and that Epstein likely killed himself in prison despite numerous conspiracy theories.
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