House Oversight Committee reviewing Epstein ‘birthday book,’ will, bank details

WASHINGTON (CN) — The House Oversight Committee has received documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate — including the contents of an infamous “birthday book” which includes a note from President Donald Trump that he has long claimed he did not write.

This new trove of information, which has yet to be made fully public, comes as lawmakers dig deeper into the government’s investigation of the late New York financier and convicted pedophile.

An Oversight Committee aide confirmed to Courthouse News on Monday afternoon that the panel had indeed received the document drop from the Epstein estate, which followed through on a subpoena issued by committee chairman and Kentucky Representative James Comer late last month.

Among the information provided by the estate is Epstein’s last will and testament, information about his known bank accounts and entries from his address and contact books spanning nearly 30 years. The document drop also includes the 2007 nonprosecution agreement between Epstein and the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida.

And the Epstein estate has also provided lawmakers with a “birthday book” compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, the late financier’s one-time partner and accomplice in his sex trafficking ring, to celebrate his 50th birthday in 2003.

The Oversight Committee aide said that staff would review the documents it received from Epstein’s estate and release them publicly in the near future.

But that did not stop Democrats on the panel from immediately going public with information from the document drop — namely, Trump’s own submission to Epstein’s birthday book.

Oversight Committee Democrats posted an image to social media apparently depicting a note from the now-president to Epstein that appeared in the birthday compilation. The missive bears Trump’s signature — just his first name — and features a female figure with breasts drawn in ink around the typed note.

Trump’s message reads as a conversation between him, Epstein and a third entity referred to only as a “voice over.”

“We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” Trump writes to Epstein. “Yes, we do, come to think of it,” the billionaire financier replies in Trump’s words.

The now-president, wishing Epstein a happy birthday, opines that “a pal is a wonderful thing” and says that he hopes every day is “another wonderful secret.”

Trump’s birthday message to Epstein was the subject of a Wall Street Journal report in July, a report which prompted a $10 billion lawsuit from the president. Trump has denied leaving such a note for Epstein, saying at the time that they were “not his words” and “not the way I talk.”

The document published by Oversight Democrats on Monday, however, matches the Journal’s description exactly.

In a video message posted to X Monday afternoon, California Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, accused Trump of lying to the American public about the existence of his “birthday book” letter and said he was leading a “White House coverup.”

“We will not stop until we get justice for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and all those that were involved,” said Garcia. “We do not care how powerful you are, how connected you are, how much money or wealth you have or what political party that you are in.”

The Trump administration, for its part, has once again denied that the president was behind the 2003 letter.

In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that reports about the message prove that the suggestion Trump was involved with Epstein’s birthday book is “false.”

“[I]t’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” Leavitt said. She did not explain the presence of what appeared to be the president’s signature on the image of the birthday message.

The White House added that Trump’s legal team will continue its lawsuit against the Journal.

“This is FAKE NEWS to perpetuate the Democrat Epstein Hoax!” said Leavitt.

Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have pushed for greater transparency in how the federal government handled Epstein’s prosecution and investigated his sex trafficking crimes. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers joined survivors last week on the Capitol steps to urge their colleagues to support efforts to publish a much-vaunted list of Epstein’s clients.

Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican, and California Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, are currently collecting lawmaker signatures for a so-called discharge petition which would force the House to hold a vote on their joint resolution to force the release of the government’s Epstein files. As of Monday afternoon, the petition has 215 of the required 218 signatures.

But Republican leadership has been tepid in its approach to the push for transparency on the Epstein investigation. House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested that Democrats are using the Epstein files as a political cudgel against Trump and has disparaged Massie for his role in pushing for their release. Johnson has urged his colleagues to give the White House space to conduct its own review of Epstein documents.

And the House speaker last week found himself in hot water after he made an unsubstantiated claim to reporters that Trump had been an “FBI informant” in the government’s investigation of Epstein.

There’s no evidence to support that claim, and Johnson has since walked it back, telling reporters Monday that he had used incorrect “terminology” and that he merely was suggesting Trump had been “helpful” to federal investigators.

Meanwhile, the House last week passed a resolution directing the Oversight Committee to continue its probe into Epstein. It was a largely symbolic move, since the investigation is already ongoing, and critics including Massie and Democrats slammed it as a smokescreen aimed at giving political cover to Republicans who opposed legislative efforts to release the Epstein files.

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