When The Wall Street Journal reported two months ago that Donald Trump had written a suggestive letter to Jeffrey Epstein in celebration of the notorious child abuser’s 50th birthday, in 2003, the administration had a choice of available responses. The strategy it went with was indignant denial.“Democrats and Fake News media desperately tried to coordinate a despicable hoax,” said the White House spokesperson Liz Huston. “Forgive my language but this story is complete and utter bullshit,” Vice President J. D. Vance wrote on X. “The WSJ should be ashamed for publishing it. Where is this letter? Would you be shocked to learn they never showed it to us before publishing it? Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?” Trump sued the Journal’s parent company and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for defamation, seeking $10 billion in damages. In the legal complaint, Trump’s lawyers accused the paper of “malicious, deliberate, and despicable actions,” including publishing “a series of quotes from the nonexistent letter.”Now that Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have obtained and shared the letter, which is very much existent, that approach appears to have been shortsighted.Buying Trump’s denial always required accepting some shaky premises. First, that the Journal, a highly regarded newspaper, would report an incriminating story, without evidence, about a famously litigious man with essentially infinite resources. Second, that a newspaper owned by Murdoch, a famous conservative, is in fact a partisan Democratic rag that would say anything to hurt a member of the opposing party without ascertaining its truth. (This is an extension of a long-standing conservative belief that the mainstream media follow the same journalistic principles, or lack thereof, as partisan conservative media). And, third, that the suggestion that Trump might engage in sexual gratification of a morally dubious nature is completely out of line.Even so, on much of the political right, the truth of these premises appeared incontrovertible. Indeed, many conservatives claimed to consider the fakeness of the Journal story so obvious that they expected its publication to only help Trump.At the time of publication, the Epstein story had opened a small but notable fissure between the president and his cult following. Now, however, thanks to the Journal, Trump was once again the victim. By publishing a clearly fake report designed to smear the president, the logic went, the mainstream media had driven his erstwhile supporters back into Trump’s arms. “Embattled MAGA Rallies Behind Trump After Leak of Alleged Epstein Letter,” reported Axios.[Jonathan Chait: Trump’s Epstein denials are ever so slightly unconvincing]This was not merely the observation of cynical politics reporters. Conservatives were loudly declaring that the story had caused them to reflexively defend the president’s moral character. “Thank God for Dems and media overreach on this,” an anonymous Trump ally told Politico. Jack Posobiec, who had briefly wavered, declared to Steve Bannon, “We’re so back. Everyone is firing on all cylinders. The MAGA movement is completely united behind this fight.”The most puzzling aspect of the total-denial approach is that it robbed Trump’s supporters of any fallback defense. The Epstein letter is eyebrow-raising—“We have certain things in common,” Trump writes, closing with the wish, “May every day be another wonderful secret”—but it is not an explicit confession. Trump could have admitted to being its author while arguing that the commonalities and secrets alluded to mundane, or at least legal, activities. Instead, he described the letter as “false, malicious, and defamatory”—conceding that, if it were real, it would be pretty bad.Guess what? It’s real. And it’s bad.When the Journal story first broke, Vance demanded, “Will the people who have bought into every hoax against President Trump show an ounce of skepticism before buying into this bizarre story?”The episode certainly does tell us something about Trump and the need for appropriate levels of skepticism. Don’t count on the president’s cultists to draw the right conclusion.