US Democrats release alleged Trump birthday note to Epstein

A lewd birthday letter that Donald Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 – which the US president claimed did not exist – was published on Monday by a congressional panel investigating the late financier’s sex crimes case.

The letter, a typewritten message inserted into the sketched outline of a nude woman, was one of many notes sent by Epstein’s friends that his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, now imprisoned, had compiled into a book for his fiftieth birthday.

The Wall Street Journal had reported on the existence of the book and letter in July, prompting a US$10 billion defamation suit from Trump, 79.

The US House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the book along with other documents from Epstein’s estate, including bank records, as part of its probe launched this summer into the handling of the late sex offender’s case.

Trump’s alleged note consists of a short dialogue between “Donald” and “Jeffrey”.