00:00In other news, a congressional panel investigating Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes case has released a birthday note Donald Trump allegedly sent to the late financier on his 50th birthday.
00:10The letter is a lewd-typed message inserted into the sketch of a naked woman.
00:14In July, the Wall Street Journal reported on the existence of a book compiled by Epstein's friend Ghislaine Maxwell,
00:21and it prompted a $10 billion defamation suit from the U.S. president.
00:25For more on this story, we can bring in our international affairs editor, Philip Terrell.
00:29Philip, great to see you as always. Talk us through what is in this letter exactly.
00:33This is reported to be a private conversation on the letter between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump,
00:42in which basically Donald Trump alludes to sexual goings-on.
00:47It's a fairly lewd letter, and it ends up with Donald Trump saying,
00:50may every day be another wonderful secret, signed Donald.
00:53And apparently, according to experts, Donald Trump has drawn the figure, as you can just see in that picture we'll be showing you,
01:02drawn the outline of a female body around the statements.
01:07This is something that's been denied by Donald Trump.
01:10It was denied, first of all, that he'd ever written a letter to Jeffrey Epstein.
01:14As you were just saying, the Wall Street Journal reported the existence of this book and the letter in July.
01:20It was then subpoenaed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House Oversight Committee,
01:25and now it's been published so we can see it.
01:27So that's undermined what Donald Trump was originally saying, that he hadn't written a letter.
01:32Then he said that it wasn't he who'd written the letter,
01:36because he doesn't draw pictures and he wouldn't have written that kind of comment at the bottom of the letter.
01:40But there is a signature which says simply Donald.
01:45And that is where I think there are a lot of concerns that this letter may in fact have been written by Donald Trump,
01:53and Donald Trump's basically been trying to cover this all up.
01:55So that signature, do we know how authentic it is?
01:59Well, there has been an investigation by the New York Times, which is quite interesting,
02:03where they've compared different signatures by Donald Trump over the same period to other members of his party and work colleagues.
02:14If you look at them, you can see them here.
02:16There is one thing that is the same on all of these signatures,
02:20and that is when Donald Trump signs his name just as Donald,
02:24there is a long line at the end of it, which you don't see when he signs Donald Trump.
02:28They've been saying that it's a bit like a seismic graph showing an earthquake because it goes up and down a lot.
02:35And that is something that would push one to believe that maybe it was Donald Trump who did sign this letter.
02:41There's another point also which has been brought up, which is,
02:44well, why back in 2003 would a false letter written by Donald Trump or supposedly written by Donald Trump
02:51be put into a book by Gillian Maxwell, who was the girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein,
02:58and given to Jeffrey Epstein as a birthday present when the same book you have a letter from Bill Clinton
03:03and from, for example, the U.S., the U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson.
03:10So that also raises the question, why would this suddenly appear now
03:14and why would there have been this false letter all those years ago,
03:17which didn't have any reason for being back then?
03:20It just shows that Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were very close friends and companions
03:24and maybe had a secret life that everybody else didn't know about.
03:28Now, what we do know is Donald Trump's base has been closely following the Epstein investigation.
03:36Have they responded to this letter from Donald Trump?
03:40And I'm just curious, what has the official response been from the White House?
03:43Well, there's either flat denial or confusion, flat denial from the White House Press Secretary,
03:49Karen Elaine Livid, who says that the letter was clear that Donald Trump did not draw the picture
03:55and did not sign it.
03:56Where she gets that information, we don't know.
03:58She said the legal team will continue aggressively pursuing litigation.
04:02The White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Taylor Budovich, has posted various pictures
04:06on X of Trump's signature over the years and said, well, look, it's proof it's not his signature.
04:12But many House Republicans are remaining tight-lipped.
04:14They're a bit confused about really what to say and they've been waving off questions about this.
04:18But there is an attorney for multiple victims in the U.S.
04:20who says that this whole thing is very strange and it shows that Epstein and Trump were associates
04:25and that we know they parted together and obviously looked at women together,
04:29which is both very creepy and very odd and that has been boosted by the showing of this letter.
04:35So this has opened a can of worms, which, of course, Donald Trump has denied.
04:39But Donald Trump always, when he's up against something he doesn't like,
04:43will do two things, first of all, attack and then deny.
04:45So I think we'll have to wait to see how this all plays out in the coming days.
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