White House says it would support forensic analysis of alleged Trump signature on Epstein letter

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By Jeff Mason and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday said it would support a forensic analysis of the signature on a letter purportedly given by Donald Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that Trump’s aides say is not the president’s.

Trump, who was friends with Epstein before becoming president but had a falling out with the former financier years before his death, has denied giving him a letter that appears in a birthday book for Epstein with the sketch of a woman’s body and a note about secrets.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday released the letter, written more than 20 years ago, to the public. The White House quickly denied its authenticity.

Trump told reporters on Tuesday it was not his signature or his speaking style in the note. “That’s not my language. It’s nonsense,” he said.

The release of the document and others involving Epstein have brought renewed attention to an issue that has become a political thorn in the president’s side. Though he has urged his supporters to move on from the topic, appetite for details about Epstein’s crimes and who else may have known about them or been involved with him has remained high.

Karoline Leavitt, the president’s spokeswoman, told reporters the White House would back an analysis of the signature to prove Trump right.

“The president did not write this letter. He did not sign this letter,” she said.

Leavitt said Trump also had not signed a check to Epstein that allegedly had his signature on it.

“The president has one of the most famous signatures in the world, and he has for many, many years,” she said.

House Oversight Committee chair James Comer, who is leading the congressional Epstein investigation and subpoenaed the Epstein estate for documents including the so-called birthday book, said he believed Trump.

“The president says he did not sign it, so I take the president at his word,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters.

PUBLIC SUSPICIONS

Lawmakers met with Epstein victims last week at the U.S. Capitol. Asked if he would meet with victims, Trump said he had not considered that.

“Certainly I don’t like that whole situation with respect to anybody being abused or hurt, but I haven’t, I haven’t even thought about that,” he said.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday found the U.S. public continues to harbor suspicions about the Epstein case, with 65% of respondents saying the government is hiding information about his 2019 death in prison, which was ruled a suicide, and 72% saying the government is hiding information about the accused sex trafficker’s client list. Both figures were up slightly from a similar survey in July.

However, the survey of 1,084 adults found a bright spot for Trump: 44% of Republican respondents said they approved of the way he was handling the Epstein matter, up from 35% in July. Overall, only 17% of the public approved of his handling of the issue.

Four Republicans in the House of Representatives have signed on to a bipartisan petition seeking to force the Trump administration to release all documents on Epstein.

Republican Representative Thomas Massie said he hoped Comer’s committee would investigate what he said looked like Trump’s signature on the birthday note.

“I’m not a forensic expert, but it looks like his signature,” Massie told reporters. “Hopefully they can do some kind of forensics on it and figure that out, so we don’t have to debate the knowable.”

Comer said his committee was unlikely to invest in examining a signature from so many years ago.

Leavitt accused Democrats of trying to hurt the president by focusing on the Epstein case.

“Republicans in the Trump Department of Justice have done more in terms of transparency when it comes to the Epstein case than any prior administration,” she said. “And why are the Democrats all of a sudden caring about this? It’s because they are desperately trying to concoct a hoax to smear the president of the United States.”

Pressed on what the White House believed was a hoax, Leavitt criticized the opposition party for using the Epstein story to distract from the Trump administration’s achievements.

“That is what we mean when we call it a hoax,” she said.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and David Morgan; additional reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Stephen Coates and Shri Navaratnam)