Trump’s signature, a symbol of presidential power, is under new scrutiny thanks to the Epstein case

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a document with his signature as he speaks at the Nation Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Friday, April 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

The signature of an American president is one of the planet’s most powerful symbols. It can set your tax bill, your immigration status and who does or does not get aid from the world’s largest economy.

Now, though, Donald Trump’s distinctive signature is being scrutinized for a decidedly unpresidential reason.

Two documents in Jeffrey Epstein‘s 50th-birthday album purportedly include Trump’s signature — one on a risque line drawing of a female body and one on a picture of Epstein holding up a novelty check bearing Trump’s name. A House committee released the 2003 book Monday, with some members insisting the multi-peaked black signatures are authentically Trump’s, one of the best-known autographs in the world. The White House says the president did not sign the letter or the check to Epstein, who was later exposed as a sex offender and died by suicide in prison in 2019.

“It’s not my signature,” Trump told reporters outside a restaurant in Washington on Tuesday night. “And it’s not the way I speak.” Also Tuesday, the president declared the Epstein matter “a dead issue” in a phone call with NBC News.

The “birthday book” signatures matter in part because they are perceived as a measure of how close Trump was to Epstein before the president says he ended the friendship two decades ago.

And they are part of a bipartisan push in Congress for the release of the so-called Epstein files after years of speculation and conspiracy theories stoked by Trump and many of his allies. The Justice Department in August began turning over records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation to the House Oversight Committee.

Signatures have a history of conferring authority. But now?

By the standards of handwriting scholars, determining whether it’s truly Trump’s signature is difficult. By the standards of the U.S. political system, it’s impossible. Despite the obvious resemblance to Trump’s other signatures, partisan loyalty is driving opinion.

Tamara Plakins Thornton, professor emerita of history at the University at Buffalo and author of “Handwriting in America: A Cultural History,” said handwritten signatures have conferred authority and authenticity “by consent” since the printing press raised their popularity in the 19th century.

“We have a fondness for signatures as marks of the unique self,” Thornton said. “But of course it’s kind of baloney if you think about it. It’s been a long time since (a signature) really could give that rock-solid proof.”

“Authenticity is a very difficult thing to prove,” said Tyler Feldman, owner of Inscriptagraphs, a memorabilia firm in Las Vegas. The multibillion-dollar memorabilia industry, he said, revolves around establishing an object’s authenticity via science and analysis contracted to specialists. In the age of AI and deepfakes, “there are so many fraud signatures out there,” he added, “whether he signed it or not, it’s too hard to say.”

Nonetheless, signatures have great value — and a long history in American folklore.

The signing pens themselves are status symbols of presidential access, shown off in lobbying and congressional offices around Washington as signs of clout. It is customary, for example, for presidents to sign legislation into law using multiple pens they then give out, often on camera, to stakeholders in turn. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did the same when she signed articles of impeachment against Trump in 2020 in what amounted to a power flex as the leader of a separate and equal branch of government.

John Hancock, one of the nation’s founders, famously signed his name to the Declaration of Independence in a large and flamboyant style — the better, legend has it, for the king of England to read without his spectacles. Now, one’s “John Hancock” is a nickname for one’s signature.

If not proof, signatures point to stubborn political pain for Trump

Even Trump can see from experience that he can’t just command the sizable swaths of his own base demanding a full accounting to let it go, especially after his allies stoked the call to release the Epstein files. He’s tried repeatedly to deflect attention to other matters and shame “weaklings” who persist in asking about Epstein. Trump has called the scandal “a Democrat hoax that never ends” and vowed to sue The Wall Street Journal, which first revealed the letter.

Even the “hoax” characterization has changed in the face of questions of logic: Who would have forged his signature in 2003 and why? On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt answered that it was all a Democratic and media narrative “to drag on this bad story about him.” She said the White House would support analyses of Trump’s purported signature on the Epstein scrapbook.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is leading a bipartisan push for a House vote to force the Justice Department to release its Epstein files, played down the letter’s relevance.

“I think the document’s a distraction,” Massie said. “I do think that it does bear on the credibility of the people who are trying to keep these documents from being released. It’s sort of indicative of the things that might come out if we were to release all of the files. In other words: embarrassing, but not indictable.”

Trump understands the value of his autograph

Trump was a celebrity before he was a politician, and his signature is an extension of his brand. He has long been fond of sending notes to people, always with his thick scrawl at the bottom. In December 2015, Trump was widely photographed signing the chest of a female supporter at a rally in Manassas, Virginia, rock star-style. Smiling, she then blew him a kiss, according to photos of the exchange.

He understands the value of authenticity: As recently as June, Trump repeated his long-standing allegations that President Joe Biden’s White House relied on an autopen to sign presidential pardons, executive orders and other key documents, and said that cast doubt on their validity. Pressed by reporters, Trump acknowledged he had no such evidence, and Biden said any such suggestion was false.

As president, Trump keeps Sharpie markers handy. When he went to the U.S. Open, on Sunday, he signed hats and tossed them to supporters in the crowd.

Trump also enjoys the theatricality of signing documents, a way to demonstrate the power of the presidency. He frequently summons the press into the Oval Office while he completes executive orders. An aide lays the document on the desk in front of him, Trump scrawls his signature and then holds it up for the cameras.

“Seriously, is that a good signature?” he asked during one such session on Aug. 25. “Who can write like that? Nobody.”

___

Laurie Kellman, The Associated Press

Kellman reported from London. Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Matt Brown contributed to this report from Washington.