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Photo: Ramin Talaie/Corbis/Getty Images

Donald Trump would prefer that his birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein did not exist. So when The Wall Street Journal reported on it in July, he and his allies insisted it’s fake for a variety of implausible reasons. Trump said, “I never wrote a picture in my life” and “I don’t draw pictures,” though we’ve seen many of his sketches over the years. And Trump supporters suggested he would never use words and phrases from the poem like “enigma” and “I won’t tell you what” despite many examples of him doing just that.

Now that the House Oversight Committee has released the actual image of the poem, Team Trump has come up with a new convoluted reason that the poem can’t be real: Trump’s signature doesn’t match.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the image “PROVES” Trump “did not sign it,” without really explaining why:

X/@PressSec

Taylor Budowich, the deputy chief of staff for communications, made this argument more clearly, posting several recent examples of the president’s signature:

X/@TayFromCA

Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson showed the two images side by side and urged Trump to sue some unnamed party (he’s already filed a defamation suit against the Journal over the poem):

Much like “Trump isn’t a doodler” and “he’s never said ‘enigma’” arguments, the signature argument actually proves the opposite of what Trump’s allies intend. It’s easy to find examples of Trump’s signature that look incredibly similar to the gross scrawl at the bottom of the nude-woman sketch.

Trump’s signature “has evolved over the years,” as the New York Times noted. The paper published “several letters that Mr. Trump wrote to New York City officials from 1987 through 2001 show him signing only his first name, and those signatures closely match the first-name-only version of Mr. Trump’s signature on the Epstein note.”

The president’s own book Letters to Trump contains dozens of personal letters he signed with just “Donald.” They all feature a spiky D followed by a long tail on the second d, which Trump omits when he’s signing his full name. For example, here’s a letter from the book that he sent to Oprah Winfrey in 2011:

Letters to Trump

Here’s a closer look at Trump’s signature on the Oprah letter, followed by the signature on the poem:

It’s not even clear what Team Trump is alleging when they insist the signature isn’t real. They’re saying someone — Ghislaine Maxwell? Wall Street Journal reporters? Lawyers for Epstein’s estate? The House Oversight Committee? — planted an elaborate Trump birthday poem and sketch. But the people who crafted this nefarious hoax couldn’t figure out how to paste in an accurate copy of the president’s signature?

Of course, sowing confusion and doubt is the entire point. Sure, you can easily find hundreds of examples of the president’s signature that look incredibly similar to the one on the poem. But are you an expert in handwriting analysis? Is that even an exact science? Who can really prove that Trump’s preferred version of reality isn’t the truth?

Epstein Letter Signature Actually Does Look Like Trump’s

Epstein Letter Signature Actually Does Look Like Trump’s