In recent times, there has been a substantial amount of media coming to the surface of secretive connections between the current president, Donald Trump, and New York financier / convicted child sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The relationship between the two has been recorded over the years through pictures, videos, audio recordings, and more. Though Trump claimed they had a falling out around 2004, a series of emails recently released proves otherwise. (Charalambous et al.) Epstein claimed that Trump “knew about the girls” (Ruetenik, et al.) This is just one of the disturbing statements found in the emails. Michael Wolff, renowned journalist, and apparently someone with personal ties to Epstein is recently a topic of conversation as he too has been brought up in the emails yet tried to defend himself saying he was involved with them for the sake of journalism and because of Epstein’s greed for relationships with powerful people. He also spoke recently in a podcast titled “The Daily Beast,” and spoke of the two, saying they had a “deep relationship.” (Ruetenik, et al.)
Throughout the years, Trump and Epstein have talked about each other constantly. In 2010 a video of a deposition of Epstein shows the attorney asking Epstein, “Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?” To which Jeffrey takes a long pause before posing the question, “What do you mean by ‘personal relationship’ sir?” Epstein pauses for a while because he questions how much he should share about his, once very close friend, Trump. Another piece of media that brings up a concerning query about the two's “relationship” is the infamous birthday letter. A letter found in an album compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, reveals a letter of a female body, with dialogue between the two men progressively going down the body, and a signature of Trump at the bottom. While the content of the letter is mysterious and quite disturbing to some, the last sentence before Trump's signature reads, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret” (Price). There has been much debate about the “secret” Trump speaks of, but with such secrecy between the two there may never be a way of knowing for sure.
