White House to ‘Aggressively Pursue Litigation’ Against WSJ After Release of Alleged Epstein Birthday Card

The White House on Monday refuted allegations that President Donald Trump penned a birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein decades ago and said that it would “continue to aggressively pursue litigation” against The Wall Street Journal.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said that the Epstein estate released the card to them, and the Wall Street Journal published the alleged card online. The Wall Street Journal had first reported in July on Trump’s inclusion in a birthday book for Epstein.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X that “the latest piece published by the Wall Street Journal PROVES this entire ‘Birthday Card’ story is false,” adding that “it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it.”

Leavitt said the Wall Street Journal reporter “reached out for comment at the EXACT same minute he published his story giving us no time to respond.”

Deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich wrote on social media that the signature at the bottom of the letter doesn’t belong to the president.

“Time for @newscorp to open that checkbook, it’s not his signature. DEFAMATION!” Budowich wrote on X, referring to News Corp, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal as well as Fox News.

The note was allegedly included as part of a 2003 birthday album compiled for Epstein, a convicted sex offender.

Trump has denied writing the letter and creating the drawing, calling a report on it “false, malicious, and defamatory.”

“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures,” Trump said in a July Truth Social post following the Wall Street Journal’s first report.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Monday homed in on the birthday card, with Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, posting it online. Garcia said in another post on X that the Epstein estate had released the card to Oversight Democrats.

Epstein, a wealthy and well-connected financier, was found dead in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges that said he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls. The case was brought more than a decade after he cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of nearly identical allegations.

His longtime accomplice and ex-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, is currently serving a 20-year prison term for conspiring with Epstein to abuse young girls, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Justice Department in August started turning over records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation to the House Oversight Committee, its chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said.

The Epoch Times did not receive a comment from Dow Jones, the publisher of the WSJ, before press deadline.