By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
A few of our readers reached out after reading “Dumb of the Week” in the Sept. 4 edition to point out my claim that President Donald Trump buried his ex-wife Ivana at his New Jersey golf course to take advantage of tax benefits was incorrect.
After further research, it’s evident that I did, in fact, err in my research. Everything about the burial was true except for the claim that The Trump Organization had attained nonprofit status for the property, which isn’t true. I conflated the fact that the Trump Family Trust had sought to designate a property in nearby Hackettstown, N.J., as a nonprofit cemetery company — not his Bedminster Golf Course, where Ivana Trump’s grave is located.
In the age of constant lies and grift coming from our president, it’s a full-time job keeping track of it all. Unlike Trump, however, when I make a mistake I own up to it.
When searching for points to illustrate how little Trump cares for his constituents and the rule of law, I could’ve chosen any number of other examples.
Such as in January 2025, on his second day in office, when Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht operated the shady dark web marketplace Silk Road, which former-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara described as, “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet,” where more than $200 million worth of illegal drugs were sold. Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 in New York in a narcotics and money-laundering conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors also said Ulbricht solicited six murders-for-hire, including one against a former Silk Road employee. Trump championed his release as a victory for the “Libertarian Movement” and called his sentence “ridiculous.”
Or I could have pointed out that on his first day in office, Trump granted a pardon to every person charged or convicted for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which he stoked with false claims that the election was “stolen” because he lost. These 1,500 insurrectionists broke windows and forcefully entered the Capitol, where they beat law enforcement officers with weapons ranging from hockey sticks to stolen riot shields.
Or I could’ve written about the changing narrative of Trump’s involvement with child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Before his second term, Trump championed those calling for full transparency to release the so-called “Epstein files,” which purportedly showed who was implicated in underage sexual abuse.
Trump’s explanation of his relationship with Epstein keeps changing. He first said, “We fell out over a piece of property,” then changed to, “He stole girls from my spa,” until the inevitable position he usually takes, which is that it was all a “Democrat hoax,” before Speaker of the House Mike Johnson spoke to reporters and claimed that Trump was an “FBI informant” before “backing away” from the claim days later.
So, in other words, Johnson lied.
Now, after The Wall Street Journal released a copy of a lewd letter Trump reportedly sent to Epstein as part of a book given to the latter for his 50th birthday, it appears the pushback and denial from Trump and his minions has fallen flat on its face. This is the letter in which Trump drew the outline of a nude female figure and signed his name where the pubic area would be, ending with the cryptic line, “A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump continues to call the letter “FAKE” and denies authoring it. Vice President JD Vance called the Journal’s story “complete and utter bullshit.”
“I never wrote a picture in my life,” Trump said at one point. “I don’t draw pictures.”
A simple Google search confirms this is false. Trump used to donate an autographed doodle every year to charity, usually of the New York City skyline or the Empire State Building with his signature scrawled along the bottom — the same signature written at the bottom of the letter to Epstein. Now, Trump’s media sycophants are busy trying to convince us the signatures aren’t similar, but several examples from the same time period show it to be a spot-on match.
The pressure on the Trump administration to release all the information on Epstein continues to mount. Trump and Vance both campaigned on the promise they would investigate Epstein and his associates, yet they continue to obfuscate with deflection and outright lies to cover up the growing truth about the president. Isn’t it interesting that every single Republican on the House Rules Committee voted to block the release of the Epstein Files in July?
Perhaps GOP stands for something other than Grand Old Party… like Guardians of Pedophilia?
