White House backs handwriting expert review of Epstein birthday letter

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The White House said on Tuesday that it would support a handwriting forensics analyst reviewing a birthday letter purportedly sent by Donald Trump to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein decades ago.

A copy of the 2003 letter, written within a doodle of what appears to be a naked woman's body and signed "Donald," was released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday. The White House has strongly denied its authenticity and the president has launched a lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal newspaper, which first reported on its existence.

"The president did not write this letter. He did not sign this letter, and that's why the president's external legal team is aggressively pursuing litigation against the Wall Street Journal, and they will continue to," White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Asked specifically if the White House would support an expert comparing the signature to Trump's, Leavitt said: "Sure. We would support that. And in fact, I have already seen many forensic analysis of signatures coming out."

Multiple administration officials have compared the signature seen in the letter to the president's, including White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich who posted photos of the president's signature from 2024 that do not match the signature on the card, though they would have been 21 years removed from the time the card was written.

The WSJ separately published an analysis of the letter saying both the signature and font used are similar to that seen in a 2006 thank you letter sent by Trump to American attorney George Conway and a letter Trump sent to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2000.