Leavitt Cites Funniest “Handwriting Experts” on Trump Signature

As the White House flailingly denies the authenticity of Donald Trump’s lewd 2003 birthday note to his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is, apparently, just creating evidence out of whole cloth.

Since the letter was released Monday—as a result of the House Oversight Committee subpoenaing Epstein’s estate—Leavitt and other Trump spokespeople have sought to deny its veracity by arguing that the signature at its close doesn’t match Trump’s current handwriting.

In reality, examples abound of nearly identical signatures by Trump from around the time of the letter’s writing.

Nonetheless, Leavitt dug in her heels at a Tuesday press conference, where she even claimed to have brought receipts: “I have already seen many forensic analysts of signatures coming out. I believe it was The Daily Signal that published a piece with three separate signature analysts who said that this absolutely was not the president’s authentic signature,” the press secretary said.

No such Daily Signal story exists, as Matthew Gertz of Media Matters observed on X. Instead, Leavitt was likely thinking of an article by another conservative website, The Daily Wire. But even that story was a far cry from her description.

The Daily Wire, for instance, did not cite “three separate signature analysts,” It cited three “AI research systems”—which did not remark, at all, on Trump’s signature, but rather compared the diction in the 2003 letter to Trump’s other publicly available writings. The AI models apparently cast doubt on the note’s authenticity, finding it inconsistent with the president’s speech habits (namely, too “sophisticated” for Trump).

And the AI models’ conclusions are quite dubious. For example, although the AI systems flagged that the 2003 letter employs third-person narration, words like “enigma,” and a theatrical opening line (“There must be more to life than having everything”), these by no means prove Trump was not the author.

In July, when The Wall Street Journal first reported on the existence of the letter, Judd Legum of Popular Information showed that each of these elements of the letter are plausible Trumpisms. This is not to mention that The Daily Wire overlooks the fact that one’s verbiage varies depending on context.

The Daily Wire story, in other words, is quite thin gruel—failing in its desperate mission to prove the letter was faked (and certainly not proving that Trump’s signature was forged). It’s no wonder Leavitt had to invent an imaginary article instead.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman had a gross and callow response to Israel’s attack on Qatar’s capital city.

Israel struck Hamas’s political leadership in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, as they gathered to discuss a U.S. ceasefire proposal, killing six people.

Qatar, a U.S. ally, has condemned what it called a “flagrant violation of international laws and norms,” and President Donald Trump said in a statement that this bombing “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.”

But Fetterman’s take on the strike, which left five lower-ranking Hamas members along with a Qatari security guard dead, was horrific and infantile all at once.

The senator shared the AP’s story with a gif of Winnie the Pooh gleefully dancing, about to dig into a pot of “hero hunny.”

Pod Save America host and former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor wrote of Fetterman’s response, “I fucking hate this idiotic, childish memeification of deadly serious issues. Any hope of getting the remaining Israeli hostages out alive could be gone, any hope of ending the war in Gaza could be dead, and this clown is posting a Winnie-the-pooh gif.”

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and during the ensuing genocide in Gaza, Fetterman has been fervently pro-Israel—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even gifted him an honorary pager, mocking the Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed at least 12 people, including two children, and wounded around 2,800, in September 2024.

In addition to being a likely violation of international law, the strike may very well destroy any progress that’s been made toward reaching a ceasefire agreement, and comes as Israel threatens a full invasion of Gaza City, which is sure to add to the already horrific death toll of more than 64,000 Palestinians.

But that significance is clearly lost on Fetterman.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump is awfully sorry about Israel’s military strike on Qatar Tuesday—but wouldn’t divulge whether Israel had told them ahead of time.

Speaking to reporters at a White House press briefing Tuesday, Leavitt delivered a strange statement on behalf of the president, expressing just how sad he’d been to hear about the deadly attack.

“This morning the Trump administration was notified by the United States military that Israel was attacking Hamas, which—very unfortunately—was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar,” Leavitt said. While attacking Qatar “does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” eliminating Hamas was a “worthy goal,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt claimed that Trump had “immediately directed” U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff to inform the Qatari government of the impending attack.

“The president views Qatar as a strong ally and friend of the United States, and feels very badly about the location of this attack,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump believed that the incident could be an “opportunity for peace.”

Unsurprisingly, Qatar didn’t quite see it that way. It condemned the attack as a “flagrant violation of all international laws and norms.”

Leavitt also repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether Israel had warned Trump about the strike on the U.S. ally ahead of time, referring reporters back to her “lengthy and thorough” statement.

In the aftermath of Israel’s attack on Qatar Tuesday, Israeli sources told multiple outlets—including CNN and Israel’s Channel 12—that the U.S. had prior knowledge of the attack. It looks like not even a $400 million luxury jet could buy Trump’s protection, and Leavitt’s statement was just crocodile tears.

This isn’t the first time the Trump administration hasn’t been forthcoming about its coordination with Israel.

When Israel launched a sweeping attack on Iran in June, two Israeli officials claimed that Trump had given them the green light to do it, despite the U.S. president’s claims that he’d had nothing to do with it. The sources said that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had lied to reporters about coordinating the attack in the days before. Later, when Trump was asked whether Israel had given him a “heads-up,” he replied: “Heads-up? It wasn’t a heads-up. It was, we know what’s going on.”

A Georgia judge plans to throw out the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, charges against the 61 defendants who were protesting the construction of “Cop City,” the $90 million, 85-acre police training facility in the lush forest of a majority-Black Atlanta neighborhood in 2023. The facility opened in April. 

Fulton County Judge Kevin Farmer told the court that he did not think Attorney General Chris Carr had the authority to pursue the sweeping RICO indictments under Georgia law, as he had never obtained the necessary permission from Governor Brian Kemp. 

“It would have been real easy to just ask the governor, ‘Let me do this, give me a letter,’” Farmer said. “The steps just weren’t followed.” 

The “Stop Cop City” protests and subsequent arrests that followed were sparked by the police killing of environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a.k.a. Tortuguita, at the Stop Cop City Encampment in January 2023. Autopsy reports showed that they were shot over 50 times while sitting cross-legged with their hands up, and no traces of gunpowder were found on them, contradicting the police report stating that Terán shot first.  

“The 61 defendants together have conspired to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center by conducting, coordinating and organizing acts of violence, intimidation and property destruction,” Carr said when the Cop City protesters were first indicted.

In addition to the RICO charges, three of the defendants were originally hit with charges of money laundering after organizing a bail fund, but those charges also failed to stick. Another three activists were charged with federal intimidation after making flyers calling Jonathan Salcedo, the state trooper who murdered Tortuguita, a “murderer.” Five of the protesters were charged with domestic terrorism and arson. Farmer is considering dismissing all of the separate charges attached to the RICO, allowing Carr to pursue the domestic terrorism ones. 

Even still, this is a massive victory in the face of a state looking to bring the hammer down on people trying to stop an environmentally destructive, military-style police base from being built in their city after all legal options had been exhausted. That shouldn’t get you charges that used to be reserved for the Mafia. 

At 61 defendants, this was one of the largest RICO cases in U.S. history. 

In an 8–4 party-line vote Tuesday, Republicans on the House Rules Committee shot down a bid to put the Epstein Files Transparency Act—which would compel the Justice Department to release all unclassified records related to Jeffrey Epstein—to a floor vote.

The motion was introduced by Democratic Ranking Member Jim McGovern, who prior to the vote stressed the importance of transparency in the case of the notorious late pedophile.

“I can see why the administration might want to hide [the Epstein files] if the creepy birthday note from Trump to Epstein is any indication of what might be in those files,” McGovern said—referencing a 2003 letter, released Monday by the House Oversight Committee, in which Donald Trump appeared to offer Epstein an unsettling 50th birthday message and lewd drawing.

“But if the administration won’t follow through on their promises, Congress should force them to,” McGovern said, adding that the Epstein files legislation “does exactly that, while protecting the victims and the survivors.”

The ranking member’s ultimately unsuccessful effort comes as Democratic Representative Ro Khanna of California and Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky continue a broader campaign to force a vote on their bill. Their petition remains, as of this writing, two signatures short of the 218 required to do so. All 212 House Democrats are on board, but just four Republicans.

McGovern urged his GOP colleagues to “see the light and sign Mr. Massie’s discharge petition.” Last week, survivors of Epstein’s abuse also held a press conference in front of the Capitol demanding Congress pass the bipartisan bill.

Nonetheless, all Republican Rules Committee members present voted against it. The only “yes” votes came from McGovern and his three fellow Democratic committee members.

Here is the name of every Republican who voted to block the Epstein Files Transparency Act on Tuesday.

• Virginia Foxx—North Carolina
• Michelle Fischbach—Minnesota
• Ralph Norman—South Carolina
• Chip Roy—Texas
• Nicholas Langworthy—New York
• Austin Scott—Georgia
• H. Morgan Griffith—Virginia
• Brian Jack—Georgia