WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump has publicly denied that he draws, but numerous examples of his sketches have been sold at auction over the years, many dating from his time as a New York real estate developer, the New York Times said on Friday.
Drawings attributed to Trump, typically simple cityscapes or landmarks rendered in black marker and signed with his name, were donated to various charities in the early 2000s and have fetched thousands of dollars in later sales, the paper added.
“I don’t draw pictures,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this week, disputing a Wall Street Journal report about a 2003 birthday greeting for late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that bore Trump’s name and featured a sexually suggestive drawing.
On Friday, Trump sued the Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, seeking at least $10 billion in damages over the report.
In his 2008 book “Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success”, however, Trump acknowledged his artistic contributions.
“It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York,” he wrote.
On Friday, White House spokesman Steven Cheung dismissed the report and any suggestion that Trump’s drawings resembled the one described by the Journal.
“As the president has said, the Wall Street Journal printed fake news and he doesn’t draw things like the outlet described,” Cheung said in a statement.
“The New York Times is engaged in false and defamatory claims, and to make this false equivalation proves they are the enemy of the people.”
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
