FILE PHOTO: Supporters of Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump react as Trump speaks from the Palm Beach County Convention Center, as they attend an election watch party at Maricopa County Republican Committee during the 2024 U.S. presidential election in Chandler, Arizona, U.S., November 6, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo

In an article for The Bulwark published Tuesday, writers William Kristol, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift argued that the release of a sexually suggestive birthday note purportedly from President Donald Trump to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein makes it impossible to dismiss the president’s involvement as forgery, and that the White House’s frantic denials amount to nothing more than noise.

The authors noted that while The Wall Street Journal’s earlier reporting painted a vivid picture, intellectual suspicion isn’t the same as certainty. Only with congressional Democrats’ release of Epstein’s full “birthday book,” compiled by his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, did the letter finally appear — just as described: “Happy Birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret,” signed in Trump’s own hand, the article reads.

Equally disturbing, they highlight another entry: a novelty check supposedly from Trump, captioned with Epstein’s “early talents with money + women,” suggesting that the card, and Trump’s complicity, was part of a broader inside joke.

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The Bulwark trio condemned the White House’s response as feeble at best. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted, “it’s very clear President Trump did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it,” and Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich called out the Journal, posting mismatched signatures and yelling “DEFAMATION!”

Yet the authors point out that The Wall Street Journal’s own forensic comparisons found striking similarities between the birthday-book signature and Trump’s contemporaneous handwriting, on letters to Hillary Clinton and George Clooney, as well as in his style of line-drawing.

For Kristol, Egger and Swift, the real issue isn’t alone whether or not the letter is authentic, it’s what it says about Trump and his base. They argued that the birthday note renders Trump’s knowledge of, and perhaps participation in, Epstein’s behaviors undeniable. The White House’s attempt to drown the story in noise, the article argues, is a familiar tactic, but today there’s nowhere else to shift the focus

Politically, the authors asserted, Trump’s base has been rigorously trained over the past decade to ignore evidence, no matter how explicit. Years of “alternative facts,” conspiracy theories, and information overload have turned his supporters into masters at deflecting truths that might look damaging if taken seriously.

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“In a way, Donald Trump and his allies have spent their entire political lives preparing for this moment. The whole miserable decade of “alternative facts,” of witch hunts, of flooding the zone with shit—it all amounted to a long, powerful education for his base. It’s a training in a certain kind of zen meditation, in which stories damaging to Trump pass from the eyes and ears directly out of the body without ever intersecting the brain," the article said.

"By now, the base has gotten in their 10,000 hours. They’ve become masters of the craft," it added.