Trump did not write “Joe, you know I won” in his handover letter to Biden

Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States on 20 January 2021. The transition took place even as Donald Trump continued to claim that he had won the elections and the results were rigged in Biden’s favor. Amidst this a viral post on social media is circulating, claiming that before Trump vacated the White House, he wrote a letter to President Biden which says “Joe, you know I won.” The letter also has the letter head of the White House and is circulating with the claim that this is Trump’s handover letter to Biden. One can also see Trump’s signature at the bottom of the letter.

The caption of the post mentions that “Joe, you know I won. Trump's Handover letter to Biden”.

Facebook Post | Archive Link

Fact Check-

Fact Crescendo found that Trump did not leave a letter for Biden in The White House which mentioned “Joe, you know I won”. The viral letter on social media is Fake.

We started our investigation by running a Google Reverse Image search which led us to the same letter published on a blog which claimed that the letter was sent to them and asked not to be published for 1 hour.

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Next, we ran a keyword search on Google to search Trump’s recent letter or White House letterheads to compare the viral letter with the original ones. Comparing Trump’s original letters with the viral letter we found that the letters sent by the former US President’s office did not have the same office seal on the letterheads. We also found that Trump’s letters written from the President’s office bear a different format regarding dates. The original letter have month before the day and not vice versa as seen in the viral letter. We also found that the seal for White House is also different than the one shown in the viral letter. You can see a comparison below.

We also found a discrepancy between Trump’s recent signature and the signature on the viral letter. We searched for news reports that would shows Trump’s signature whose results led us to news reports which stated that Trump’s signature has changed over the years from 2015 to 2017. You can see a comparison of the signature from 2015 and 2017.

Image- The Fiscal Times | Archive Link

Next, we compared the signature in the viral letter with the signatures in 2015 and 2017 and found that it matches more with his 2015 signature and not with the recent one.

With a further keyword search we found that before leaving the White House, Trump left a letter for his successor, which was confirmed by White House spokesperson Judd Deere. But The White House did not release the contents of Trump’s note.

We also came across a news report where President Biden confirmed to reporters that he received the letter from Trump and called it “very generous”.

Conclusion- Fact Crescendo found that the viral post on social media is False. Trump did not leave a letter for Biden in The White House which mentioned “Joe, you know I won”. The viral letter on social media is Fake.