Typically full of brio and swagger, the White House is scrambling because Trump is behaving so out of character<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took Trump chronicler Maggie Haberman to cut to the chase: if Trump didn\u2019t sign the birthday card or other documents released by Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s estate, the reporter asked in a quiet yet insistent tone, what\u2019s the working theory as to why he\u2019s in there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe president has one of the most famous signatures in the world,\u201d Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, replied on Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThe president did not write that letter. He did not sign those documents.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Leavitt will have to do better than that. The typewritten message inserted into the sketched outline of a nude woman looks like compelling evidence of a close \u2013 and laddish \u2013 relationship between the US president and the world\u2019s most notorious paedophile sex trafficker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday\u2019s press briefing at the White House was the latest demonstration of how the Epstein files are the scandal that refuses to die. Leavitt threw Roman candles, Catherine wheels and smoke bombs in the air in the hope of distracting reporters. But she was unable to quash the nagging suspicion that Donald Trump<\/a> has something to hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically full of brio and swagger, the White House is scrambling this time because Trump is behaving so out of character. For years, he has inverted the politician\u2019s playbook by saying the quiet part out loud and flaunting misconduct in public. When, in a 2016 presidential debate, Hillary Clinton accused him of dodging taxes, Trump retorted<\/a>: \u201cThat makes me smart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now, he is acting like the thing he always scorned: a typical politician. Watergate was lethal to Richard Nixon because of the cover-up and reporters chipping away to gather precious information. British deputy prime minister Angela Rayner spent more than a year fending off rightwing press scrutiny<\/a> of her finances before being forced to quit last week over underpaid tax on a flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump of old would have done the opposite and released all the Epstein files, as he promised during the election campaign, even if they were personally incriminating. Better to brazen it out, lie about it and deploy some whataboutism than prolong the stench of secrecy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, he has berated reporters for harping on the subject. On Tuesday the man who usually has a comment on everything told NBC News<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t comment on something that\u2019s a dead issue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has also made crude efforts to clear his name. He became the first sitting president to sue a media outlet for defamation when he brought a lawsuit<\/a> against Rupert Murdoch\u2019s Wall Street Journal for $10bn for reporting on the existence of the birthday book and letter. If the case goes ahead, the Journal\u2019s lawyers would very likely get the chance to depose Trump about his relationship with Epstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In July, Trump\u2019s justice department interviewed Epstein associate Ghislaine<\/a>\u2002<\/strong><\/a>Maxwell<\/a>, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting underage girls for the financier. The department later released a transcript and audio recording of the interview, in which Maxwell says Trump was \u201cnever inappropriate with anybody\u201d. She was then moved from a prison in Florida to a cushier, minimum-security facility in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flailing leaves Trump\u2019s pugnacious team in unfamiliar territory. When the 2003 birthday letter was released by congressional Democrats, White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich posted various pictures on X of Trump\u2019s signature over the years and wrote: \u201cit\u2019s not his signature\u201d \u2013 convincing no one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At Tuesday\u2019s briefing, Leavitt offered a similar defence, which implies that a cunning time traveller must have skipped back 22 years to plant Trump\u2019s signature in the documents so they could try to blow up his future presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n