If you think about it, throughout his life, Donald Trump has mastered the art of hiding. While he wrote (through a ghostwriter) The Art of the Deal, he should have written The Art of Hiding.
He’s hidden his money, his mistresses, his health, and his motives. He’s ducked tax collectors, shafted small businesses, and cloaked his true wealth behind smoke and mirrors. But two recent developments, the mystery of his bruised hand and the boiling MAGA rage over unreleased Epstein files, may be where the hiding ends.
But before we dive in, two late-breaking developments about Trump’s health and about his relationship with Epstein.
First, Trump’s physician came forward Thursday to say that he was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, which is a common leg-swelling and minor ailment for people over 70. But the White House continues to hide, at least in my opinion, what’s really going on with his right hand.
And late Thursday afternoon The Wall Street Journal dropped a bombshell, alleging that Donald Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein a crude, sexually suggestive note in a 2003 birthday album assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The note was complete with a drawing of a naked woman and the message “Happy Birthday, and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Trump has vehemently denied authoring the letter or artwork, calling the report fake and said he would sue the Journal, Rupert Murdoch, and NewsCorp., the parent company of the conservative newspaper. Inquisitive minds want to know if this alleged letter, if authentic, is the reason Trump was desperate to hide the Epstein files?
Hiding, after all, is Trump’s core instinct. He hid from marital responsibility while cheating on Ivana Trump with Marla Maples. Trump and Maples separated, and while separated he began dating Melania, meeting her for the first time while dating someone else. Then in 2006, when Trump was married to Melania, he had a fling with adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Trump also spent decades hiding from the Internal Revenue Service. In a bombshell 2020 report, The New York Times revealed Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, and paid none at all in 10 of the previous 15 years. He claimed huge losses to avoid taxes, even as he lived lavishly and bragged about being exceedingly wealthy.
While he boasts of being a billionaire, Trump’s finances appear to be a rickety Jenga tower of inflated valuations, unpaid debts, and fake net worth figures, often crafted more for magazine covers than the IRS.
He’s hidden from vendors, stiffing them after work was completed on his hotels and casinos. He’s hidden from creditors behind four business bankruptcies. He’s even hidden from his own supporters. Do you ever see Trump doing rope lines? Don’t think less of me, but I’ve watched some of his rallies. He always exits stage left.
He’s also a known germaphobe who is well known for not liking to shake hands.
So when bruises appeared on his right hand this year, it should’ve raised more eyebrows. In February, close-up photos from his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron showed clear discoloration and swelling, as did photos from the campaign trail last year. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt brushed it off, claiming Trump bruised his hand from “shaking hands all day every day.”
Clearly, that explanation doesn’t wash with Trump’s lifelong aversion to handshakes.
More recently, new photos from this week of Trump doing a White House press gaggle show heavy makeup caked over the same hand. What is Trump hiding? I keep thinking about the late Queen Elizabeth’s bruised hands in her final months. Is Trump in danger? Why all the secrecy around something so jarring and all the effort to hide the bruises?
Need I remind you that this is a man nearing 80, subsisting on a diet of McDonald’s and Diet Coke, who famously said he believes exercise “uses up the body’s finite energy.”
Could the bruises signal a serious health issue? If so, it would explain Trump’s obsession with constantly painting President Joe Biden as frail. It’s classic Trump, accusing your enemy of what you’re desperately trying to conceal yourself.
Then there’s the Epstein file firestorm. Last week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she would not release sealed records from the Jeffrey Epstein case. MAGA voices, once obsessed with exposing Epstein’s elite connections, are growing furious.
Conservative firebrands like Laura Loomer, Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, and Megyn Kelly, longtime agitators for Epstein transparency, have refused to defend Trump on this one. Elon Musk cryptically posted on X, “Time to drop the really big bomb.” Even former MAGA mouthpieces like Dan Bongino and Kash Patel are feeling the heat. Before they joined the FBI (sickening), they were mounting off about the deep-state Democrats hiding Epstein’s crimes.
Kash and Dan are now the deep state.
This is not idle speculation. There are dozens of photos of Trump socializing with Epstein over the years, including at Mar-a-Lago, and Epstein’s accusers have long alleged that some of his most powerful friends participated in sex trafficking or turned a blind eye.
Trump once noted that Epstein liked women “on the younger side.” He now insists he barely knew him. But Bondi’s refusal to release the files, paired with Trump’s history of broken promises, having sworn in 2019 and again in 2023 to declassify Epstein documents, has ignited suspicion among his base.
And then came the firing of Maurene Comey on Wednesday. She was a respected prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and daughter of former FBI director James Comey. She worked on Epstein-related cases for over a decade. Her abrupt removal set off alarm bells. Was this a preemptive strike to silence a potential truth-teller?
The cracks are forming. Trump’s health might be failing. His relationship to Epstein may be more damning than even his critics imagine. The base that once celebrated him as a disruptor now senses betrayal. What if Trump, who once bragged he could “shoot someone on Fifth Avenue” and face no consequences, finally meets the moment when the mob turns?
Because here’s the truth, and that is, Donald Trump has never mastered the art of the deal. He’s mastered the art of the dodge. But a bruised hand doesn’t lie. And neither do sealed court files. One reveals the body. The other might reveal the soul. And both may expose a man who’s been hiding in plain sight for far too long.
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This article originally appeared on Advocate: From wives to the IRS, Trump has always been hiding. Will a bruised hand and Epstein finally give him away?