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Murdoch's Defense in Epstein Lawsuit: Trump Is Lewd by David Corn
Sometimes there’s no smoking gun, but there’s the smell of gunpowder.
That seems to be the case with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump gang’s handling of the scandal looks as if it is purposefully designed to raise suspicions. Fighting the release of the Epstein files, declaring this whole subject ought to be dropped, and, of course, Trump’s contradictory statements about his relationship with Epstein—it all comes across as fishy and suggests guilt of…something. Last week, the news emerged that in 2006, when sex crime charges against Epstein in Palm Beach became public, Trump called the city’s police chief and said, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.” Yet after Epstein was arrested on federal charges in 2019, Trump said he had known nothing of Epstein’s abuse of teenage girls: “I had no idea.”
Was he lying about what he knew back in the day? This—shall we say?—contradiction is hard to square. But it’s a good indication that nothing Trump claims about Epstein should be believed. Remember the birthday card? In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that a birthday album Ghislaine Maxwell prepared for Epstein in 2003 contained a greeting from Trump: A drawing of a naked female body with an imagined dialogue between “Jeffrey” and “Donald” that ended, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump’s signature mimicked pubic hair in the crotch of the figure.
Trump insisted this birthday message was a “fake thing.” He said, “I never wrote a picture in my life.” That was false; he had drawn sketches that were sold at auctions. And he said he was “gonna sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.”
That seemed like one of his many phony-baloney threats. After all, the Journal had found this Trump drawing in an album with well wishes from dozens of Epstein associates. It seemed legit. Would Trump really sue? Perhaps he felt emboldened by the settlements he had wrung out of ABC News and CBS News for the bogus cases he filed against them.
That seems to be the case with Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The Trump gang’s handling of the scandal looks as if it is purposefully designed to raise suspicions. Fighting the release of the Epstein files, declaring this whole subject ought to be dropped, and, of course, Trump’s contradictory statements about his relationship with Epstein—it all comes across as fishy and suggests guilt of…something. Last week, the news emerged that in 2006, when sex crime charges against Epstein in Palm Beach became public, Trump called the city’s police chief and said, “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.” Yet after Epstein was arrested on federal charges in 2019, Trump said he had known nothing of Epstein’s abuse of teenage girls: “I had no idea.”
Was he lying about what he knew back in the day? This—shall we say?—contradiction is hard to square. But it’s a good indication that nothing Trump claims about Epstein should be believed. Remember the birthday card? In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that a birthday album Ghislaine Maxwell prepared for Epstein in 2003 contained a greeting from Trump: A drawing of a naked female body with an imagined dialogue between “Jeffrey” and “Donald” that ended, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump’s signature mimicked pubic hair in the crotch of the figure.
Trump insisted this birthday message was a “fake thing.” He said, “I never wrote a picture in my life.” That was false; he had drawn sketches that were sold at auctions. And he said he was “gonna sue the Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else.”
That seemed like one of his many phony-baloney threats. After all, the Journal had found this Trump drawing in an album with well wishes from dozens of Epstein associates. It seemed legit. Would Trump really sue? Perhaps he felt emboldened by the settlements he had wrung out of ABC News and CBS News for the bogus cases he filed against them.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/02/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-lawsuit-wall-street-journal-lewd-bawdy/]