Donald Trump said on Thursday he had directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case as he sought to tamp down controversy over a story that he allegedly contributed a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album.
House passes aid and broadcasting cuts – as it happened
Read more
The president said on Truth Social he had authorized the justice department to seek the public release of the materials, which are under seal, citing “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein”.
Bondi, who has weathered days of accusations by Trump’s far-right supporters that she had mismanaged and failed to deliver on promises to release previously secret documents about the Epstein case, responded to Trump’s post with a post of her own that vowed to comply with the directive.
The flurry of activity followed a story in the Wall Street Journal that reported Trump had contributed a letter, described as “bawdy” and featuring a drawing of a naked woman’s silhouette around a typewritten personal message to Epstein, to the birthday album compiled by Ghislane Maxwell.
“A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair,” the Journal said of the alleged drawing. It added the letter concluded: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump denied to the Journal that he was the author of the birthday tribute and, hours after the story was published, announced he intended to file a lawsuit in a lengthy post on Truth Social, decrying the reporting as fake and condemning it as what he called “the Epstein Hoax”.
The president said in the post that he had personally told Rupert Murdoch and the Journal’s editor-in-chief Emma Tucker that the letter was fake and that he would sue if a story about the letter was published.
“Mr Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but obviously did not have the power to do so,” Trump wrote. “Instead they are going with a false, malicious, defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing the Wall Street Journal, News Corp and Mr Murdoch shortly.”
