A Boomerang from Palm Beach - JD Vance Is Also Reeling

JD Vance apparently wanted to prevent it with all his might - and achieved the opposite. The Republican vice president, usually a master of sharp rhetoric, resorted on Monday to vocabulary that sounded more like barroom brawl than government spokesman. In an angry post he called the birthday greeting from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein that had been delivered to the House Oversight Committee "forged crap" and a "leftist porn fantasy." But the copy of the 2003 dated, illustrated letter now lies in black and white in the archives of the Oversight Committee, bearing a signature that even Trump's lawyers do not categorically dispute.

The scene feels like a bitter lesson in political downfall: the louder Vance raged, the faster the document spread. It shows a bizarre rhyme, framed by naked silhouettes, in which Trump congratulates his then friend on his 50th birthday. The tone is as bawdy as the entire "Birthday Book" that Ghislaine Maxwell once compiled. On social networks there was a hail of ridicule: net caricatures combined Vance's rant with excerpts of the poem, others asked why the government was so nervous if everything was supposedly harmless.

Politically, the damage is considerable. Instead of undermining the credibility of the document, Vance turned the spotlight on it. Democrats are using the moment to put Trump's closeness to Epstein back at the center of the debate - and remind everyone that the billionaire continued to invite guests to his island until 2019, long after his conviction as a sex offender. Commentators spoke of a classic boomerang effect: with his outburst, Vance made the story bigger than it ever would have been without his intervention. The case shows how thin the nerves in Trump's Washington have become. The letter is no legal sledgehammer, but it exposes the lax attitude of a former circle of friends who not only tolerated Epstein's excesses but celebrated them in rhymes and drawings. Vance wanted to wipe away that impression - and has now burned it indelibly into the political memory.