--- description: A Wall Street Journal bombshell about an alleged Trump birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein ensures this fire will keep burning all summer. title: Trump Can't Put Out Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaadc2431fc5e819a/6998c86347fe51983055be97/GettyImages-2197808420.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Politics](/section/politics/) ## Politics Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [Donald Trump](/tag/donald-trump/) ## Donald Trump Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite  by [Philip Elliott](/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Jul 18, 2025 6:39 PM CUT  President Donald Trump speaks during the swearing in ceremony for Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office at the White House on February 05, 2025. President Donald Trump speaks during the swearing in ceremony for Attorney General Pam Bondi in the Oval Office at the White House on February 05, 2025.Andrew Harnik—Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent Jul 18, 2025 6:39 PM CUT _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 "undefined") _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/ "undefined") 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 "undefined") 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/ "undefined") the Justice Department to [release](https://time.com/7303381/trump-epstein-documents-wsj-letter/ "undefined") “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/ "undefined") 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/ "undefined") 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 "undefined") 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/ "undefined") 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 "undefined") 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 "undefined") 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/ "undefined") 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 "undefined")_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/"},"headline":"Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite","datePublished":"2025-07-18T18:39:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T01:21:16.528Z","description":"A report of a birthday letter to Epstein leaves Trump in a self-sustaining cycle of suspicion","url":"https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/","keywords":["Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaadc2431fc5e819a/6998c86347fe51983055be97/GettyImages-2197808420.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Philip Elliott","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaadc2431fc5e819a/6998c86347fe51983055be97/GettyImages-2197808420.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office","caption":"Pam Bondi Sworn In As Attorney General In The Oval Office","creditText":"Andrew Harnik—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7303635/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter/","name":"Why Trump Can't Put Out the Epstein Fire He Helped Ignite"}}]}] ```