Dear Mr. Trump,

I know that you say you’ve had a falling out with Jeffrey Epstein, but what does your prior friendship about him say about your character?

According to the New York Times, you and he were the only participants in a party that consisted of roughly two dozen women at your Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. This was a “calendar girl” competition that you – Donald J. Trump – requested, and obviously it was Epstein who supplied the girls.

This is the same Epstein who was convicted of sex-trafficking, the same Epstein who abused dozens of children.

This is the same Epstein about whom you stated: “He’s a lot of fun to be with … he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Now, you claim that you somehow couldn’t avoid Epstein. Really? You asked him to set up this party of girls at your place because you couldn’t avoid him?

Does this friendship with a child molester reflect on your present character and fitness for office? You bet it does.

It’s yet one more instance of the same personality trait that enables you to suck up to dictators like Putin and Kim. If someone is powerful or rich or both and can indulge your delusions of grandeur, then you will connive with them, regardless of morality and common human decency.

And please don’t tell me that Bill Clinton was a friend of Epstein’s too. He didn’t ask for a “calendar girl” competition to be set up by Epstein, and anyway the shameful conduct of others, if any, doesn’t excuse your own shameful conduct.

Very truly yours,

Bruce J. Berger