When President Trump first started ranting, really out of nowhere, about the so-called “Epstein files” being “made up” by his Democrat predecessors, as well as former F.B.I. Director James Comey, it was bizarre and suspiciously defensive. It’s now a lot less weird and a lot less suspicious.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday on a “leather-bound book” containing, among other things, a doodle of a naked woman’s body framing an odd “typewritten” note, both supposedly penned by Trump and addressed to convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. The Journal called the letter and illustration “bawdy” and described the signature as “a squiggly ‘Donald’ below [the drawing’s] waist, mimicking pubic hair.” //

Trump told the Journal that the note, included in a book allegedly compiled for Epstein’s 50th birthday, was fraudulent. “I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.” //

We also know that this all sounds almost exactly like another story involving the F.B.I. and a newly discovered document that was damaging to Trump: the case of Paul Manafort and the “black ledger.” //

The two events are almost comically identical. An office space in Ukraine was pillaged by political activists, but what luck! A little paper book was eventually recovered — oh, my! Inside is damaging information associated with Trump! In 2025, as Trump set about quickly restructuring the executive branch of the federal government and attempting to hold corrupt Democrats accountable, well, I’ll be — a leather-bound book that makes him look like the dear friend of a notorious pedophile. //

And subsequent reporting by the Times acknowledged that the ledger may very well have been fraudulent, noting in 2022 that there was “the view within the Ukrainian government that a Trump presidency would be potentially ruinous, and the admission that the ledger had not been fully authenticated and did not prove actual payments made to Manafort.”

I think I understand what Trump was saying about the Epstein files being “made up” now.