Democrats on the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Monday announced that the committee had received a new batch of material related to Jeffrey Epstein requested from his estate — most notably Epstein’s “birthday book,” which contains personal notes to the disgraced financier on his 50th birthday.
A copy of the book submitted to Congress (which was not reviewed by MSNBC) included a typed message, inside the outline of a woman’s torso, that read, in part, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” At the bottom of the message is a signature that appears to be Donald Trump’s.
Trump previously denied the existence of the note and drawing and brought a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its parent company, Dow Jones, for $10 billion. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” Trump said after the initial report. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women.”
The White House did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment.
Other redacted documents received by the committee include phone and flight logs, financial records and nondisclosure agreements. It’s not clear if a so-called client list — which the Department of Justice and FBI have said does not exist — is among the documents.
The House Oversight Committee’s Republican chair, James Comer, subpoenaed Epstein’s estate for all material related to Epstein in August. The committee said it plans to make the documents it’s received public after they’ve been reviewed.
The DOJ released more than 33,000 pages of records related to Epstein in August, the vast majority of which was already public.
Staffers of House representatives on the Oversight Committee were traveling to New York City on Monday to review unredacted versions of the material with Epstein’s lawyers to verify that the redactions were made to protect victims and minors, not powerful individuals.
Trump, who was told by the attorney general that his name appears in some of the documents, has repeatedly dismissed concerns about the files, calling it a “Democrat hoax.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke in support of Trump last week, defending him as “an FBI informant” who helped to expose Epstein, only to walk back those comments on Sunday.
There are also ongoing efforts in Congress to release the government’s Epstein files. In a rare show of bipartisanship, Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., endorsed a discharge petition last week to force a floor vote in the House on legislation to force the DOJ to release all unclassified Epstein files. (To date, the petition has gotten 215 of the 218 needed signatures.) Survivors of Epstein’s abuse spoke alongside lawmakers at a press conference in Washington, D.C., in support of the petition.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
