If you have been online at all over the course of the past several weeks, you know a little something about the raging MAGA civil war. It is impossible to follow all the daily twists and turns, even for those of us whose job it is to stay informed.
The broad, general concept is that conspiracy-minded Donald Trump supporters had long been calling for Trump’s Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein client list of prominent people the deceased financier had supposedly procured underage women for (thinking and hoping that the list would be populated by all of the Democrats they hate). It seemed like this might be close to happening when in February Trump’s attorney general Pam Bondi said it was “sitting on my desk right now to review” when asked about the Epstein client list by FOX News.
Fast forward a few months, and the official stance of the DOJ has changed to the assertion that no Epstein client list exists. Meanwhile, Trump has been viciously berating his own supporters who won’t move on from their questions about Epstein’s associates.
Naturally, all of this has brought a lot more attention to Trump’s previous relationship with Epstein. Although, according to Trump, the two had a falling out in later years, it is no secret that they were pretty good pals for quite a long time. We know Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet between Palm Beach and New York at least seven times during the 15 years or so when they seemed to be friends. Photographs and even videos exist of the two men partying together over the years.
Then there is how the two once talked about one another. There was a time when Epstein said he was Trump’s “closest friend.” As to how Trump felt about Jeffrey Epstein, Trump said to New York magazine in 2002, “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
Trump has gotten away with brazen lie after brazen lie in his political career with no apparent loss of support among his hardcore base. So, perhaps he thought he could do it yet again when it came to denying the extent of his relationship with Epstein and defending the dramatic flip flops on the Epstein files by his own Justice Department.
This time, it seems Trump’s strategy is backfiring spectacularly, only drawing more oxygen to the flames. I’ll emphasize again that there is just too much for any one person to fully keep track of, from an Epstein accuser allegedly having urged the FBI to investigate Trump decades ago to Trump’s recent gambit that releasing utilitarian grand jury testimony will somehow satiate his critics (reminiscent of the time during his first term when he thought rebranding his “border wall” as “steel slats” would somehow settle the controversy).
To focus on one small sliver here, the way the president has chosen to target his legal fight over the Epstein files scandal is particularly baffling. On July 18, Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal, as well as its owner Rupert Murdoch, over new reporting from the legendary financial newspaper that Trump had contributed a sexually suggestive letter with a crude drawing of a nude woman to a book of “bawdy letters” made to commemorate Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump defended himself on his social media platform against the reporting on this “FAKE letter” in part by claiming, “I don’t draw pictures.”
And that, like … what? “I don’t draw pictures”? I mean, forget about for a moment the fact that Trump has given multiple handmade drawings of his to charities over the years and that the naked woman drawing in question has a similar style and similar signature to many of those. Instead, ask yourself whether there’s anyone anywhere on earth who can truthfully claim, “I don’t draw pictures.”
Not even as a child? You’ve never doodled in the margins of a notebook? Never sketched out a rudimentary map in the roadside gravel? I am about the least artistic person available when confronted with Pictionary, yet even as I write these words there is a journal sitting right in front of me on my coffee table with a bad depiction of my dog scribbled in on the very first page from back in 2020.
These are veterans reporters. The Wall Street Journal is a not a publication to put something out that they know they could be sued over without having every corner of the story locked down tightly in advance. Remember, it was The Wall Street Journal that took down Theranos and its notoriously litigious CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
Trump’s lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal is likely to only bring even more attention to his Epstein connections. In discovery, it is likely that even more damaging information about his interventions in the Epstein case will come out. On the other hand, in Trump’s defense, we’ve got “I don’t draw pictures” (he has doubled down on that claim too, saying, a bit more productively “I don’t draw pictures of women” in one instance, while also oddly phrasing the claim as “I never wrote a picture in my life”).
When Trump was caught saying, in the infamous Access Hollywood tape from 2005, how he kissed women and groped their genitals, he defended his statements with a memorable characterization of them: “this was locker room talk.” Although he did later imply that the video had somehow been altered, when the recording was released weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Trump at first simply acknowledged its content, apologized, and went on to win.
It wouldn’t have been that hard for Trump to say, when confronted with the old drawing he allegedly made for Epstein’s 50th birthday, something along the lines of, “It’s been well documented that Epstein and I were friends a very long time ago before anyone came to know about his horrible criminal life, I had no idea that he was a pedophile, and it was not unusual for middle-aged men to send each other ‘locker room drawings’ during that time for a milestone birthday.” Instead, Trump comes out with, “I don’t draw pictures.” Which would be a bit like denying the validity of the Access Hollywood tape by saying, “I don’t speak in parking lots.”
Well, Epstein files rabbit holes was not what I expected to finally bring the MAGA base to its senses. But we’ll see what happens, and I’ll certainly accept the unforced error on Trump’s part. Good luck with the lawsuit, bro.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].