Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., called on the House to cancel subscriptions to the "filthy" Wall Street Journal following the newspaper's report on Thursday asserting that President Donald Trump wrote an off-color letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
"I'll be introducing legislation to end the House of Representatives subscription contract with the WSJ," Fine wrote on X on Thursday, hours after the story broke. "Americans shouldn't be paying for disgusting and filthy rags."
"I have also directed my entire staff to delete their taxpayer-funded WSJ accounts," he added.
The Journal reported that the "bawdy" letter from 2003, which was part of a collection of notes for Epstein's 50th birthday, featured a sketch of a naked woman and Trump's signature. The outlet said that it reviewed the letter but did not publish the image.
The alleged timing of the letter puts it 16 years before the disgraced financier died in jail while awaiting trial in New York on federal sex-trafficking charges. The city medical examiner concluded that his death was a suicide.
"Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret," the letter concluded, according to the Journal. Trump's signature, the outlet reported, is a squiggled "Donald" below the sketched woman's waist "mimicking pubic hair."
Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the figure and threatened to sue the news outlet owned by billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch for running the story, which he called a "fake thing."
"The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein," the president wrote on his Truth Social platform late Thursday. "These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn't print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I'm going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper."
Facing a firestorm of criticism over his past relationship with Epstein and allegations that his administration is covering up Epstein's heinous crimes to protect the rich and the powerful, Trump on Thursday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to release transcripts of grand jury testimony in the case, "subject to court approval."
Many taxpayer-funded media subscriptions were canceled earlier this year by the Trump administration through the Department of Government Efficiency.
When an X user responded to Fine's post and asked him why the federal government was funding subscriptions to the Journal in the first place, the freshman lawmaker replied it was a "great question" and said he "just got here three months ago."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.