Several notable Penn alumni — including 1968 Wharton Graduate and President Donald Trump — contributed pages to a 2003 album for Jeffrey Epstein’s fiftieth birthday, according to documents released by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Sept. 8.
Along with Trump, 1961 Wharton School MBA graduate Mortimer Zuckerman and 1954 Perelman School of Medicine graduate Gerald Edelman — who died in 2014 — appear to have signed notes in the book. The Oversight Committee released scans of the book and other documents subpoenaed during its investigation of Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The album was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell — an Epstein accomplice who was convicted of child sex trafficking in 2020 — as a gift for Epstein.
The page in the album that appears to belong to Trump contains a fictional dialogue between Trump and Epstein surrounded by the silhouette of a naked female torso. Trump’s signature appears at the bottom of the letter, below the typed line, “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump has denied that the note or the signature appearing in the book belong to him.
“It’s not my signature, and it’s not the way I speak,” he told reporters on Tuesday. “It’s nonsense. And frankly, you’re wasting your time.”
Zuckerman, a billionaire who owned the New York Daily News at the time, contributed a page where he jokingly wrote that after an “extensive search” of the newspaper, he had discovered false information about Epstein.
Zuckerman currently serves as the editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report and is the co-founder, chairman emeritus, and former chief executive officer of Boston Properties.
RELATED:
Trump budget proposal calls for 15% Department of Education funding cut, financial aid reduction
Trump executive orders target university foreign donation transparency, accreditation reform
Zuckerman did not reply to a request for comment.
Edelman, a biologist who won the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, wrote a note referring to “our many conversations, fueled by both your curiosity and your skepticism.”
He included a series of quotes from Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Henry David Thoreau, Leonardo da Vinci, and Gertrude Stein, writing that “Quoting great minds may be the only gift that I can give you that will stimulate the one [curiosity] and relieve the other [skepticism].”
Edelman died in 2014 at the age of 84.
The Wall Street Journal first reported a description of Trump’s entry in the album in July. The album did not become public until after the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed documents from Epstein’s estate in August.
