The Epstein birthday book is the volume assembled by friends of Jeffrey Epstein for his fiftieth birthday in 2003, a page of which — attributed to Donald Trump — was released by House Oversight Committee Democrats in September 2025 and discussed by John Kiriakou the same morning.[1]
The caution he entered first
Before assessing the page, Kiriakou registered a limit he says he learned from his own litigation: “I learned this from my uh case, my lawsuit, that there’s a big difference. You can’t trust a Xerox copy as being authentic. Um, you know, but I’m wondering who has the original.”[2]
The assessment
With that entered, he gave one. “It certainly looks like it certainly looks like Donald Trump’s signature. And I’m going to say it does one who used to be a banker and had to look at handwriting analysis. It certainly looks and who also is an artist. I’m gonna say whoever signed that also probably drew that too. Um, if you just look at the the quality of the line.”[2]
On the instrument, he was unusually firm. Against a viewer’s objection that the signature was done with a cheap pen while Trump uses only top-of-the-line ones, Kiriakou identified a Sharpie: “he likes the Sharpie because it’s fat. The M blah wouldn’t make a big thick line like that no matter what. Um, I have one, so I’m just telling you, I know my pens.”[3][4]
The text
Kiriakou read the page out for listeners who could not see it — a picture of a woman’s torso with a dialogue set inside it, ending: “Enigmas never age. Have you noticed that, Jeffrey? As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Donald, a pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.”[5][6]
What he made of the layout
He noted the typography as deliberate: “I took note of the fact that it was laid out in the shape of a woman’s torso on purpose, right? So, someone laid it out. This was probably done by a computer because it was 2003, but it looks almost type set. It’s meant to look like an old book.”[7]
And the register as an attempt at gentility whose sincerity he could not settle: “this is the work of someone who is trying to put on heirs. The question is, is it as a joke? Like, look at look, I’m going to pretend to be snoody, or are you really trying to pass yourself off as fancier than you are?”[7]
On the secret itself he declined to guess. “I’m not going to name the thing that that comes to mind… it could be financial. It could be it could be about something really innocuous like you both love chess or whatever, but they’ve got a little secret.”[8]
The advice
Kiriakou’s verdict on the document was one sentence: “I would not call that a Democrat hoax.”[6] His advice on handling it was the Bloomingdale precedent.
He added an observation about who benefits from the coverage: “Bill Clinton has to be enjoying this too because so long as as people like us or anybody in in media are talking about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, that means they’re not talking about Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein.”[9]