A 2003 book in which Donald Trump reportedly left a suggestive birthday note and drawing for future sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will soon be delivered to Congress.
California Rep. Robert Garcia, a ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, revealed Friday that Epstein’s estate has agreed to provide the book early next month, after being subpoenaed.
“This upcoming week, we have actually many of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein coming to Capitol Hill. We’re meeting with them. They’re talking to lawmakers. We’re going to highlight their stories. We’ve got to center these victims,” Garcia told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on All In.
“And I’ll just say one other piece of news I actually just developed in the last couple hours is we finally got word from the Epstein estate: they’re going to be providing the actual Epstein book,” he continued, before describing the contents of Trump’s letter as reported in July by The Wall Street Journal.
Garcia continued: “The Epstein estate is actually going to get us that book and a bunch of other documents that they have… We’re going to get those documents, as we understand it now, on September 8. And so that will continue our investigation.”
“And again,” Garcia added, “we ask the question: Where are the rest of the documents? What is Pam Bondi hiding? What is Donald Trump hiding? End the cover-up. Let’s get to the truth.”
Trump has denied drawing a naked woman and writing an accompanying letter to Epstein, which closed with the line: “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
“I never wrote a picture in my life,” Trump told the Journal—a claim that was immediately debunked when several of his drawings of New York buildings resurfaced.
Nevertheless, Trump sued the Journal for $10 billion, citing defamation.
After publication of the article, Brad Edwards, an attorney for some of Epstein’s survivors, predicted that the Epstein estate would turn over the book “immediately” if subpoenaed.
“Nobody would have to guess,” he told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell. “There wouldn’t have to be a lawsuit. There wouldn’t have to be discovery. You would immediately have the answers. You could flip to the page: Is there a letter, is there not a letter? It’s over.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
