--- title: Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite description: A Wall Street Journal bombshell about an alleged Trump birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein ensures this fire will keep burning all summer. canonical: https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-07-18T18:39:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T08:09:08.228Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Can't Put Out Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite og:description: A Wall Street Journal bombshell increases the likelihood that this fire will keep burning all summer. og:url: https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaadc2431fc5e819a/6998c86347fe51983055be97/GettyImages-2197808420.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Can't Put Out Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite twitter:description: A Wall Street Journal bombshell increases the likelihood that this fire will keep burning all summer. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaadc2431fc5e819a/6998c86347fe51983055be97/GettyImages-2197808420.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ab8d36e3-41d4-4c49-b2a8-076d4a2b4454&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: White House Tries to End Trump’s Role in Epstein Saga, Nixes Calls For Special Prosecutor [Watch (HLS stream): White House Tries to End Trump’s Role in Epstein Saga, Nixes Calls For Special Prosecutor](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/69RDl0zK.m3u8) (3:46)  _Published 2025-07-17. The White House on Thursday attempted to close the door on President Donald Trump’s role in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, rejecting calls from within his own political base for a special prosecutor and casting his recent comments about the “Epstein Hoax” as a swipe at Democrats, not a dismissal of Epstein’s crimes._  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jul 18, 2025 6:39 PM UTC The White House on Thursday attempted to close the door on President Donald Trump’s role in the Jeffrey Epstein saga, rejecting calls from within his own political base for a special prosecutor and casting his recent comments about the “Epstein Hoax” as a swipe at Democrats, not a dismissal of Epstein’s crimes.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jul 18, 2025 6:39 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ President Donald Trump’s White House is frantically trying to put out the blaze [sparked](https://time.com/7302426/jeffrey-epstein-files-trump-takeaways/) by its own promises to expose whatever the federal government is hiding about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. A Wall Street_Journal_[bombshell](https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter-we-have-certain-things-in-common-f918d796) has only flared up the rage, increasing the likelihood that this fire will keep burning all summer. On Thursday evening, hours after the _Journal_ had revealed a strange new dimension to Trump's long friendship with Epstein, Trump [ordered](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/07/18/bondi-epstein-files-documents-grand-jury-testimony-doj/) the Justice Department to [release](https://time.com/7303381/trump-epstein-documents-wsj-letter/) “all pertinent” grand jury testimony in the case. It was an attempt at convincing the public that the White House had nothing to hide, but it’s not clear that Trump can actually accomplish that stated goal, given federal grand jury testimony is, by law, confidential, and those documents are only a fraction of what is in the government’s Epstein files. Trump also renewed his feeble attempts to pin the whole conspiracy-soaked affair on Democrats, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former FBI Director James Comey. “If there was a ‘smoking gun’ on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the ‘files’ for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social on Friday. The whole episode seems to be spiraling. For years, a not insignificant portion of Americans have nursed suspicions that Epstein was at the core of a cabal of child sex traffickers that enveloped monied and politically powerful elites. Trump’s MAGAverse in particular was [convinced](https://time.com/7302995/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-jd-vance/) the insiders on a long-rumored client list are almost exclusively Democrats, and reasoned that justice against pedophiles was sufficient to excuse any and all character flaws incumbent in the incumbent. So when Trump’s Justice Department and FBI last week announced no further disclosures about Epstein would be coming, the [rage](https://time.com/7302426/jeffrey-epstein-files-trump-takeaways/) in the base was as immediate as it was uncontrollable. Trump’s core constituencies demanded answers. MAGA leaders and Hill Republicans had fed the paranoia for years only to have the President try to pivot to a nothing-to-see-here posture. Democrats were ready to exploit the intra-party tensions. Hill Republicans toyed with a resolution forcing the White House’s hand. It was one of the rare moments when Trump was left legitimately on his rear foot. The _Journal’s_ bombshell report centered on a previously unknown nugget: Ahead of Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003, Trump allegedly wrote a bawdy letter as part of a collection organized by convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell. “Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret,” Trump is said to have written as part of a caption to a sketch of a naked woman. The letter also included Trump noting that he and Epstein “have certain things in common.” Trump said the purported letter was “fake.” He [threatened](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/17/trump-epstein-lawsuit-wall-street-journal-letter-00461871?utm%5Fsource=firefox-newtab-en-us) a lawsuit against the _Journal_ and its owner, Rubert Murdoch. On the Hill, reaction was just as pointed, with legislation circulating to cancel offices’ subscriptions to the news organization in protest for their publication of the embarrassing detail. Before that story forced Washington to spend Thursday evening huddled over their smartphones, the White House thought it might yet be able to find an offramp from the Epstein mess. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday said the White House had no authority over the release of sealed documents and instead pushed blame at the Justice Department, the courts, and anyone who wasn’t behind the security perimeter. She also [ruled out](https://time.com/7303241/jeffrey-epstein-trump-special-prosecutor/) a special prosecutor, a favorite foil to pin politically unpopular probes on. It did not work. By the time the _Journal_ added another story on this tower of scandal and innuendo, it was clearly teetering. After the _Journal_ addition, it was absolutely wobbly. A package of spending cuts, facing a Friday deadline, was on shaky ground as amendments demanding disclosures seemed to be limitless. It, of course, got muscled across the finish line but it left a lot of lawmakers [wincing](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/18/hill-republicans-brace-for-another-grueling-fight-over-trumps-spending-cuts-00461872) that they’re going to have to do this all over again in a few weeks. Until then, there’s no reason to think this Epstein epic is going to fade. Trump’s base is [convinced](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/us/politics/epstein-files-house-republicans-vote.html) that there is nefarious material implicating mostly, if not solely, Democrats just around the corner, even if there are piles of instances that show Trump palling around with Epstein. MAGA hired guns know that no morsel they can offer will quell this chase; the grand jury testimony is but a piece of what DOJ collected about Epstein and his alleged crimes. Once the spigot is opened, there’s no shutting it off. This is already a self-sustaining cycle of suspicion. Trump and his allies built this trouble. While Trump didn’t lean into the [tinfoiledness](https://time.com/7302995/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-jd-vance/) the way his supporters did, he did not shut it down, either. Now, he owns this splatter. It’s exactly the type of self-own that might be Democrats’ best chance of getting anything passing for power back in next year’s elections. And Trump seems incapable of snuffing out this blaze. _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ## Transcript [00:00] Thank you. Caroline. There's been a lot of discussion about [00:02] the Epstein files and the president's comments yesterday, calling it a hoax. [00:06] Can you clarify which part of the Epstein hoax is the hoax part? [00:10] The president is referring to the fact that Democrats have now seized on [00:15] this as if they ever wanted transparency when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, [00:19] which is an asinine suggestion for any Democrat to make. [00:23] The Democrats had control of this building, [00:25] the white House for four years, [00:26] and they didn't do a dang thing when it came to [00:29] transparency in regards to Jeffrey Epstein and his heinous crimes, [00:33] it was this president who directed [00:35] the Department of Justice and the attorney general to do [00:37] an exhaustive review of all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which they did. [00:42] The attorney general and the FBI, [00:44] led by Pam Bondi, [00:45] Dan Bongino, Kash Patel. [00:47] These are great patriots, [00:48] some of the most trusted voices in the Republican Party movement. [00:51] It's part of the reason the president appointed him, [00:54] appointed them to these high law enforcement positions. [00:57] And they spent many months going through all of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein. [01:02] And they concluded what they found in that memo, [01:04] which they drafted and they released. [01:06] And so the president has been transparent. [01:09] He has followed through on his promises to the American people, [01:12] but he doesn't like to see Democrats in [01:14] the mainstream media covering this like [01:17] it's the biggest story that the American people care about. [01:19] What is stopping the administration from just redacting any sensitive information, [01:25] grand jury information, and putting out what is [01:28] appropriate so that the American people can decide and then let this story die? [01:32] Well, in terms of redactions or grand jury seals, [01:35] those are questions for the Department of Justice. [01:37] Those are also questions for the judges who have that information under seal. [01:41] And that would have to be requested and a judge would have to approve it. [01:43] That's out of the president's control. [01:45] He has said, in agreement with some of the leaders on Capitol Hill, [01:48] that if the Attorney General and [01:50] the Department of Justice come across any other credible evidence, [01:53] they should provide that to the American people. [01:55] The president has said that, [01:57] and he agrees with them on that. [01:59] The Department of Justice did, [02:01] and I would refer you to them. Dasha. [02:03] Has the white House been directly in touch with some of [02:06] the MAGA influencers that are still not satisfied with this administration's handling, [02:10] and has a message to them in similar to what the president has said, [02:13] which is sort of either let this go or we don't need your support. [02:16] Well, look, the president and this team are [02:19] always in contact with the president's supporters, [02:21] with voices of many kinds on both sides of the aisle. [02:24] I think that's part of the reason this president is a great president, [02:27] because he's willing to listen and hear other people's perspectives. [02:30] But ultimately, he has led this country, [02:33] not just over the past six months, [02:35] to historic success, but also through his first four years as [02:38] president and as the leader in the creator of the MAGA movement. [02:41] He has led through these perilous times for [02:44] our country based on instinct and in the best interest of the country. [02:47] And as I always say, [02:49] the American people should trust in President Trump. [02:52] The president said that he floated the idea of a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. [02:57] Can you confirm that? [02:58] And does he has he asked the attorney general to do this, [03:02] to appoint a special prosecutor to look it over? [03:04] Well, the idea was floated from someone in the media to the president. [03:08] The president would not recommend a special prosecutor in the Epstein case. [03:12] That's how he feels. And as for his discussions with the attorney general, [03:15] I'm not sure. Deanna. [03:17] Thank you so much. Do you know what the president's reaction was to [03:20] Mike Johnson saying that he wants additional files released, the Epstein files? [03:25] Was there a conversation with Mike Johnson about that following his comments? [03:29] I won't discuss the president's private conversations with the speaker of the House, [03:33] but as I answer to Jackie's question earlier, [03:35] the president has said if the attorney general and the Department of Justice and [03:39] the FBI have any more credible evidence in regards to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, [03:43] they should put that forward. 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