The Epstein Birthday Letter: Another Thing I Don't Get

Alt media has been slow on the uptake over The Wall Street Journal's report of a 2003 birthday letter from Trump to Epstein:

The letter revealed by The Wall Street Journal was reportedly collected by disgraced British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell as part of a birthday album for Epstein years before the wealthy financier was first arrested in 2006 and subsequently had a falling-out with Trump. The letter bearing Trump’s name includes text framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman and ends with, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the newspaper. The outlet described the contents of the letter but did not publish a photo showing it entirely.

My first reaction is to wonder why the WSJ is messing around with stuff at this level. Trump has had allegations of a tryst with Stormy Daniels; he's been found liable for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll; he's spoken of grabbing women on the Access Hollywood tape. None of these things has done him permanent damage, and in fact, every time they came out in his interregnum, his polls went up. But similar allegations against Bill Clinton, JFK, Grover Cleveland, or Andrew Jackson didn't do them political harm, either.

So it can't be that he once wrote a bawdy birthday letter to Epstein, there's got to be more to it -- even if the letter is authentic, it seems like it's no big deal. So maybe it's the wording of the message, which is said to be typewritten:

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.

As far as I can parse this, it seems to be an oh-so-arch reference to some sort of "wonderful secret", and we might infer that the wonderful secret is they're both into nymphets, or something like that. But in a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “These are not my words, not the way I talk." I'm inclined to agree. "Enigmas never age" is something out of Oscar Wilde, not Donald J Trump. The same for "may every day be another wonderful secret" -- that's gushy girl-chat, not Donald J Trump. Trump's style is punchy, one- and two-syllable concrete words. "Enigmas" and "wonderful" aren't his vocabulary.

So this is on top of the problem that so far, the WSJ hasn't shown a photo of the letter itself, and at least according to Vice President Vance, it didn't show the letter to the Trump team in preliminary discussions, either. And it's supposed to be in some sort of leatherbound book put together by Ghislaine Maxwell. One thing that bothers me is that the text quoted above, something like eight typewritten lines, is somehow "framed by the outline of what appears to be a hand-drawn naked woman".

This suggests to me that the overall image must be quite large, larger than what might be expected in a grereting card or a page in a normal book -- and I just can't imagine Trump having the artistic focus or the time to create something like this. Since we don't have a photo, I can only imagine this to be something like a Charles Bukowski sketch, an example of which is at the top of this post. Bukowski, yes. Donald J Trump, no.

But here's another thing that doesn't fit. The Wall Street Journal is a generally reputable paper They have a lot to lose if this is a hoax, but not a whole lot to gain if it's true. CBS got crosswise with Trump, and they're still suffering the aftereffects -- the same morning news that carries the Epstein letter also reports they've canceled "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert".

On one hand, commentators like Scott Jennings are calling the story "a dud" as it is, but now the onus is going to be on the WSJ to prove the letter is authentic, especially if Trump follows through and files suit. Whatever the WSJ may write, there will be a process of discovery which will inevitably cover the letter itself, the leatherbound book that allegedly contained it, the provenance of the book and the letter itself, and so forth. This could well take years and run past Trump's term in office, and he isn't eligible to run again anyhow.

And the downside for the WSJ would make the problems CBS and CNN now face look like just a bad day, while even if the letter is authentic, it will likely not affect Trump much at all. I just don't get this.

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